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THE  FATES 
From  a  painting  by  Paul  Thumann 


Discourses  of  Epictetus 

Translated  by 

George  Long 

With  a  Critical  and  Biographical  Introduction 
by  John  Lancaster  Spalding 

Illustrated 


New  York 

D.  Appleton  and  Company 

1904 


Copyright,    1900, 
By  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


EPICTETUS 


OF  the  life  of  Epictetus  little  need  be  said.  His 
biography  is  his  character,  and  this  lies  open  in 
his  books,  where  the  fine  spirit  of  an  earnest  and 
noble  soul  still  breathes.  He  was  born  in  Phrygia,  about 
the  middle  of  the  first  century.  His  mother  was  a  slave; 
his  father  is  unknown.  Epictetus  is  not  his  name,  but  is 
a  Greek  word  which  denotes  his  servile  condition.  In  his 
youth  he  became  the  property  of  Epaphroditus,  a  freed- 
man  of  Nero's,  who  permitted  him  to  attend  the  lectures 
of  Musonius  Rufus,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  teachers 
in  Rome.  Having  acquired  freedom,  he  began  himself  to 
give  lessons;  but  he  was  soon  sent  into  exile,  together  with 
the  other  philosophers,  by  the  Emperor  Domitian. 

Settling  at  Nicopolis,  in  Epirus  (the  modern  Albania), 
he  opened  a  school,  and  continued  to  teach  the  doctrines 
of  stoicism  to  the  time  of  his  death,  at  the  age,  it  is  sup- 
posed, of  nearly  a  hundred  years.  He  was  feeble  in  body, 
lame,  poor,  and  unmarried,  living  alone  until  he  took  an 
old  woman  into  his  house  to  care  for  an  orphan  whom 
he  had  adopted.  He  wrote  nothing,  but  talked  with  his 
pupils  in  a  familiar  way  of  whatever  concerns  the  conduct 
of  life.  Arrian,  his  favourite  disciple,  took  notes  of  his 
conversations,  not  with  a  view  to  publication,  but  for  his 
own  use.  When,  however,  without  his  knowledge,  they 
had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  several,  he  edited  them  him- 


iv  EPICTETUS 

self.  Thus  we  owe  to  an  accident  the  existence  of  these 
"  Discourses,"  which  form  one  of  the  world's  vital  books. 
The  "  Manual  "  is  a  collection  of  aphorisms  taken  sub- 
stantially from  the  larger  work. 

Epictetus  was  not  the  founder  of  a  new  philosophy. 
Zeno,  the  originator  of  the  Stoic  system,  was  his  master, 
and  Zeno  himself  derived  his  fundamental  principles  from 
Antisthenes,  the  author  of  the  cynic  school  and  the  friend 
of  Socrates. 

The  Greeks  are  the  creators  of  philosophy,  and  their 
earliest  attempt  at  systematic  thought  was  an  effort  to 
understand  Nature.  But  they  soon  learned  that  it  was 
necessary  to  begin  from  within,  since  to  know3nything 
man  must  first  know  himself.  Thus  the  problem  of  the 
conduct  of  life  forced  itself  upon  them.  This  is  the  con- 
stant preoccupation  of  Socrates,  who  was  born  five  hun- 
dred years  before  Epictetus.  He  taught  that  the  good  is" 
to  be  sought  not  in  outward  things,  nor  in  the  indulgence 
of  appetite,  but  in  virtue,  which  for  him,  however,  is  an 
intellectual  rather  than  a  moral  habit.  His  calm  and  ra- 
tional temper  led  him  to  the  belief  that  man  always  acts 
in  accordance  with  his  knowledge,  does  what  insight  shows 
him  to  be  useful  to  himself.  He  who  does  evil,  does  it  from 
a  mistake  of  judgment.  Sin  is  error.  Virtue,  then,  being 
chiefly  knowledge,  may  be  taught,  and  to  teach  it  is  the 
philosopher's  life  work.  But  Socrates  moved  in  a  circle 
from  which  there  was  no  escape.  To  know  the  useful  is  vir- 
tue.   But  what  is  the  useful?    That  which  makes  for  virtue. 

Antisthenes  does  not  attempt  to  determine  the  mean- 
ing of  the  good.  He  simply  declares  that  virtue  is  the 
only  good,  and,  in  his  view,  virtue  is  the  intelligent  con- 
duct of  life.  Right  life  is  the  essential  good;  virtue  is  its 
own  reward,  and  one  need  not  look  to  its  results.  It  is, 
in  the  midst  of  whatever  vicissitudes,  a  sure  possession. 
The  virtuous  man  is  independent  of  events,  and  stands 


c 


r 


EPICTETUS  V 

secure  against  fate  and  fortune.  The  world  is  full  of  things 
he  does  not  need;  he  seeks  not  wealth,  nor  fame,  nor  hon- 
our, nor  pleasure. 

Zeno,  the  Stoic,  born  in  Cyprus  about  340  b.  c,  is  the 
heir  of  the  Cynics.  The  sage,  as  he  conceives  the  truly 
wise  and  virtuous  man,  is  first  of  all  independent  of  the 
world,  since  only  on  this  condition  can  he  be  free  and  find 
happiness  in  himself  alone;  and  as  what  is  external  is  but 
little  subject  to  human  will,  he  must  overcome  the  worlH" 
within  himself  by  gaining  the  mastery  over  the  feelings 
and  desires  which  it  excites.  To  be  self-contained  and 
self-sufficient,  to  remain  unmoved  in  the  presence  of  good 
or  of  evil  fortune,  imperturbable  though  the  universe  be 
shattered,  is  the  goal  he  must  strive  to  reach.  If  he  can 
not  defend  himself  against  the  excitations  of  feeling,  he 
will  at  least  refuse  his  assent,  and  thereby  prevent  them 
from  becoming  passions.  His  ideal  is  apathy,  absence  of 
emotion.  The  course  of  things  may  bring  him  pleasure 
and  pain,  but  since  he  holds  that  the  one  is  not  a  good, 
the  other  not  an  evil,  he  retains  his  equanimity.  Virtue 
is  his  sole  good,  and  the  only  evil  is  to^permit  passion  to 
conquer  reason.  This  withdrawal  of  the  individual  within 
himself,  however  it  may  be  modified  and  supplemented,  is 
an  essential  element  in  the  Stoic's  conception  of  life. 
Reason,  from  his  point  of  view,  is  not  only  man's  nature, 
but  that  of  the  universe,  while  the  impulses  of  the  senses 
are  irrational.  The  soul,  as  part  of  the  World-Reason, 
must  therefore  exclude  from  itself  all  excitation  of  feeling, 
~"  To  live  in  harmony  with  Nature  is  to  rise  into  a  sphere 
where  the  senses  cease  to  trouble;  it  is  to  live  in  com- 
munion with  the  cosmic  power,  from  which  all  things 
proceed,  in  cheerful  obedience  to  the  eternal  destiny, 
which,  being  the  will  of  God,  is  the  divine  law.  The  wise 
ijman  accepts  this  life  as  his  first  and  highest  duty.  It  is 
the  task  which  Reason  imposes  upon  him.     The  Stoics, 


Vi  EPICTETUS 

however,  holding  that  man  is  by  nature  social,  require 
that  he  lead  a  social  life.  The  social  ideal  of  the  sage  is 
that  of  a  universal  ethical  community,  and  he  is  indiffer- 
ent to  forms  of  government  and  to  actually  existing  states. 

I   He  is  a  citizen  of  the  world,  demands  justice  and  sympathy 

I  for  all,  and  refuses  to  recognise  the  division  of  mankind 

\^into  Greeks  and  barbarians. 
/    The  chief  stress  is  laid  upon  the  worth  of  moral  person- 
/ality,  upon  the  paramount  value  of  the  good  that  lies 
within,  though  the  duty  of  co-operating  with  one's  fellow- 

1  men  for  the  general  welfare  is  inculcated.  The  metaphys- 
ical principle  is  pantheistic,  and  involves  fatalism;  but  the 
Stoics,  preoccupied  exclusively  with  moral  ideas  and  in- 
terests, cared  little  for  logical  consistency,  and  stoutly  as- 
serted the  freedom  of  the  will,  holding  fast  to  liberty  of 
choice  and  to  the  universality  of  causation. 

Though  of  Greek  origin,  stoicism  attained  its  highest 
practical  significance  in  Rome,  where  its  doctrines  seemed 
to  be  suited  to  the  character  of  the  people.  Those  stern, 
self-controlled,  and  brave  men  were  attracted  by  a  system 
which  emphasized  the  value  of  independence,  courage,  and 
imperturbability.  They  found  in  it  a  source  of  the  moral 
enthusiasm  which  the  pagan  religions  had  no  power  to 
inspire.  They  were  drawn  to  the  society  of  the  philoso- 
phers, received  them  into  their  houses,  and  became  their 
disciples.  By  daily  intercourse  with  these  earnest  and 
austere  teachers,  such  men  as  Scipio  and  Laelius,  as  Brutus, 
Cato,  and  Cicero,  were  formed.  The  prestige  and  authority 
of  the  preachers  of  stoicism  were  heightened  by  the  general 
corruption  which  was  undermining  the  state,  and  the  public 
calamities  which  were  becoming  more  and  more  frequent. 
The  noblest  souls,  despairing  of  the  cause  of  liberty, 
withdrew  from  politics,  and  sought  consolation  in  a  phi- 
losophy which  taught  them  how  to  bear  the  ills  of  life 
and  how  to  die.     In  Rome,  where  only  what  is  practical 


EPICTETUS  vii 

was  rightly  appreciated,  little  attention  was  given  to  the 
metaphysical  presuppositions  of  stoicism,  and  the  great 
teachers,  losing  sight  of  the  logical  requirements  of  the 
system,  took  what  seemed  to  them  true  and  to  the  pur- 
pose wherever  it  was  found.  Indeed,  contradiction  and 
inconsistency  did  not  repel,  as  we  have  seen,  the  early 
Stoics,  and  in  its  Roman  development  the  philosophy  be- 
came more  and  more  eclectic. 

Epictetus,  Seneca,  and  Marcus  Aurelius  are  the  three 
famous  names  of  this  later  school  of  stoicism,  and  they  are 
all  teachers  of  the  conduct  of  life,  in  love  with  inner  per- 
fection, and  comparatively  heedless  of  mere  speculation. 
In  the  midst  of  the  general  decadence  and  threatening  col- 
lapse of  the  civilized  world,  they  sought  to  rouse  con- 
science; and  as  the  pagan  religion  could  do  nothing  for 
them,  they  strove  to  give  a  kind  of  sacredness  to  human 
wisdom.  To  derive  profit  from  their  works  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  understand  their  theories.  All  that  is  required  is  an 
open  mind  and  a  tractable  heart.  What  is  speculative  dis- 
appears in  the  presence  of  the  practical  worth  of  the  truths, 
they  utter.  To  read  them  aright  we  need  an  attentive  andi 
devout  spirit  rather  than  an  acute  and  curious  intellect.     \ 

Of  these  three  teachers  of  the  later  stoicism,  Epictetus  is 
the  noblest  character  and  the  greatest  authority.  His  life 
is  more  completely  in  harmony  with  his  doctrine.  He  rises 
in  moral  elevation  to  the  level  of  his  maxims  and  precepts. 
His  purity  equals  his  insight.  He  is  the  venerable  sage. 
He  is  the  saint  of  a  philosophical  religion,  a  man  who  from 
an  abject  condition  raised  himself  to  the  worthiest  dis- 
positions of  mind  and  heart,  who  in  the  midst  of  a  cor- 
rupt society  remained  unstained  and  faithful,  his  thought 
fixed  on  the  highest  moral  ideals,  and  following  to  the 
end  his  vocation  as  a  preacher  of  righteousness — a  slave, 
a  cripple,  a  pauper,  as  his  epitaph  declares,  but  dear  to  the 
gods.    He  has  drawn  for  us  an  ideal  of  the  Stoic  sage,  in 


Viii  EPICTETUS 

which  his  own  character  is  portrayed.  He  accuses  neither 
God  nor  man;  he  controls  desire;  he  knows  not  anger,  nor 
resentment,  nor  envy,  nor  pity;  he  fences  himself  with  vir- 
tuous shame.  He  has  nothing  to  conceal;  he  does  not  fear 
exile  or  death,  for  wherever  and  however  he  is  there  also 
is  God.  But  it  is  not  enough  that  he  be  good  in  and  for 
himself.  He  is  a  messenger  sent  by  Zeus  to  instruct  men 
concerning  good  and  evil,  to  point  out  to  them  that  they 
walk  in  wrong  ways.  He  must  cry  out:  "  Oh,  mortals, 
whither  are  ye  hasting?  Why  do  ye  tumble  about,  like 
the  blind?  The  good  is  not  in  the  body;  it  is  not  in  wealth, 
or  power,  or  empire;  it  lies  in  yourselves.  God  has  sent 
you  one  to  teach  you  by  his  example.  Take  notice  of  me 
that  I  am  without  a  country,  without  a  house,  without  an 
estate,  without  a  servant:  I  lie  on  the  ground;  have  no 
wife,  no  children,  no  coat,  but  have  only  earth  and  heaven 
and  one  poor  cloak.  And  what  need  I?  Am  I  not  with- 
out sorrow,  without  fear?  Am  I  not  free?  Did  I  ever 
blame  God  or  man?  Did  I  ever  accuse  any  one?  Have 
any  of  you  seen  me  look  discontented?"  Epictetus  is 
direct,  plain,  and  earnest  in  his  speech.  His  style  is  bare 
of  ornament,  vigorous,  and  incisive.  He  is  always  serious, 
often  stern,  and  at  times  pathetic.  He  does  not  deliver 
finished  discourses,  is  heedless  of  rhetorical  ornament,  and 
wholly  intent  on  improving  his  hearers  by  inciting  them 
to  the  love  and  practice  of  virtue.  He  is  not  so  much  an 
orator  as  a  brave,  genuine  man,  whose  whole  being  vibrates 
in  his  words,  which  are  vital  and  electric.  They  are  the 
honest  and  fearless  expression  of  what  he  thinks  in  his 
heart,  of  what  he  feels  and  lives.  They  are  the  utterance 
of  what  is  deepest  and  permanent  in  man,  and  therefore 
they  never  lose  the  power  to  stimulate  and  nourish  faith  in 
the  worth  of  a  life  led  in  obedience  to  the  divine  com- 
mands. The  simple  and  straightforward  manner  in  which 
he  speaks  the  highest  truth  has  made  him  a  favourite  not 


EPICTETUS  ix 

with  scholars  merely,  but  with  all  classes  of  readers.    Who- 
ever is  persuaded  that  life  is  chiefly  conduct  may  derive 
help  from  him.     Only  the  learned  can  read  Plato  with 
profit,  and  the  fewest  of  these  study  him,  but  an  ordinary 
mind  may  find  in  Epictetus  a  friend  and  teacher,  for  his 
philosophy  is  of  the  most  practical  character  and  easily 
understood.    Wisdom  consists  in  knowing  how  to  distin- 
guish between  what  is  our  own  and  what  is  not  ours. 
Our  will,  our  opinions,  desires,  inclinations,  and  aversionsi 
are  ours;  the  rest — body,  possessions,  honour,  and  reputa-l 
tion — is  not  ours.    The  divine  law  bids  us  hold  fast  to  what ! 
is  our  own,  and  make  no  claim  to  what  is  not  ours.     God 
in  endowing  us  with  free  will  gives  us  control  over  what/ 
is  ours,  but  other  things  he  has  not  placed  in  our  powers 
A  man's  business  is  with  himself,  with  learning  to  think'^ 
rightly  and  will  wisely.     Here  he  is  master,  here  he  has'\ 
full  control.    Let  him  give  heed  to  this,  and  in  other  things 
resign  himself  with  a  cheerful  heart  to  the  guidance  of 
the  all-wise  Father,  who  rules  the  whole.     Since  we  can/ 
not  determine  the  course  of  Nature,  it  is  our  duty  to  ac-i 
cept  with  courage  and  resignation  whatever  befalls.     Is\ 
money,  or  friend,  or  wife,  or  child  taken  from  us,  let  us  re- 
member that  they  never  were  ours;  they  were  but  lent 
to  us,  and  have  been  returned  to  the  owner.     Shall  we 
complain  when  he  asks  us  to  restore  what  belongs  to  him? 
But  it  lies  with  us  to  have  an  independent  soul  and  a  vic- 
torious will,  to  remain  imperturbable,  serene,  reverent,  and 
thankful,  despite  disgrace  and  misfortune,  which  can  not 
touch  our  inmost  being  or  deprive  us  of  freedom  and 
virtue.    These  are  the  sole  good,  and  so  long  as  they  are 
ours  all  else  is  unimportant.     Will  that  things  happen  as 
they  do,  and  nothing  shall  happen  contrary  to  thy  will. 
But  how  shall  I  bear  the  wrongs  which  the  wicked  inflict? 
May  not  God  choose  his  agents  to  demand  of  thee  what 
he  has  lent.    Thou  art  but  a  player  to  whom  a  role  has 


X  EPICTETUS 

been  assigned.  Take  cheerfully  whatever  character  is  given 
thee,  whether  it  be  that  of  a  beggar  or  that  of  a  king.  Thyj 
sole  business  is  to  act  well  the  part  to  which  God  has  ap-] 
pointed  thee.  Think  of  him  as  often  as  thou  breathest,  and' 
let  thy  whole  study  and  desire  be  to  know  and  do  his  willi 

For  Epictetus  a  virtuous  life  is  not  a  means,  but  an 
end.  The  sage  does  right  not  from  the  hope  of  prosperity 
and  good  name,  not  that  he  may  have  health  of  body  and 
mind,  not  because  wise  behaviour  produces  a  contented 
and  happy  temper,  but  he  does  what  is  just,  avoids  what 
is  base,  without  thought  of  reward  or  punishment,  im- 
pelled solely  by  a  sense  of  duty.  He  clings  to  virtue 
though  virtue  be  his  death  sentence,  and  though  he  have 
no  expectation  of  a  future  life.  He  makes  no  sacrifice  in 
abandoning  all  things  for  virtue,  for  virtue  is  his  only 
good.  He  who  wishes  to  please  men,  who  desires  to  be 
known  and  praised  even  for  his  virtue,  is  not  a  lover  of 
virtue,  as  he  who  loves  money  or  pleasure  or  glory  is  not 
a  lover  of  mankind.  The  wise  man's  will  rolls  like  a  wheel 
with  steady  and  even  motion  toward  the  one  eternal  goal, 
to  which  the  universe  also  is  drawn.  "  If  there  be  any! 
worth  in  thee,  O  man,  learn  to  walk  alone  and  to  conj 
verse  with  thyself!  " 

In  the  "  Manual  "  Epictetus  appears  as  a  stern,  uncom- 
promising Stoic.  In  the  "  Discourses  "  we  find  him  in  the 
midst  of  his  friends  and  disciples,  where  he  takes  a  more 
human  and  sympathetic  tone.  Here  he  infuses  into  his 
morality  the  glow  of  religion,  which  makes  it  vital  and 
effective.  We  are  not  always  made  to  feel  that  virtue  lacks 
vigour,  unless  it  be  hard  and  repellent,  that  pride  heightens 
truth,  or  that  insolence  is  a  mark  of  goodness,  or  that 
harshness  is  zeal,  or  modest  assertion  of  opinion  a  com- 
promise with  error.  We  almost  seem  to  hear  Thrasea 
declare  that  he  fears  to  hate  even  vice  too  much,  lest  per- 
chance he  come  to  hate  his  fellow-men.    It  is  in  the  "  Dis- 


EPICTETUS  xi 

courses  "  that  he  tells  us  that  the  true  Stoic  is  "  the  father 
of  mankind;  that  all  men  are  his  sons  and  all  women  his 
daughters.  He  attends  to  all,  takes  care  of  all.  Is  it  from 
impertinence  that  he  rebukes  those  he  meets?  He  does  it 
as  a  father,  as  a  brother,  as  a  minister  of  the  common 
parent,  Zeus."  He  does  not  marry,  he  has  no  children, 
he  accepts  no  office,  that  nothing  may  interfere  with  the 
work  which  God  has  given  him  to  do.  He  is  careful  of 
his  health  and  appearance,  lest  he  repel  those  whom  he 
wishes  to  attract.  Above  all,  he  is  clean  of  heart,  for  how,'^ 
if  he  is  himself  guilty,  shall  he  reprove  others?  He  watches  ''■ 
and  labours  for  men,  becomes  purer  day  by  day;  he  rules 
all  his  thoughts  as  the  friend,  as  the  minister  of  the  gods, 
as  a  partner  in  the  empire  of  Zeus.  He  has,  besides,  so 
much  patience  as  to  appear  to  the  vulgar  insensible  and 
like  a  stone;  "  for  there  is  this  fine  circumstance  connected 
with  the  character  of  a  Cynic:  that  he  must  be  beaten  like 
an  ass,  and  yet  when  beaten  must  love  those  who  beat 
him  as  the  father,  as  the  brother  of  all." 

Epictetus  does  not  reject  the  pantheism  of  the  Stoics 
nor  the  polytheism  of  his  age,  but  whatever  his  theological 
opinions,  which  seem  to  have  been  vague,  he  does  not 
think  of  God  as  an  indeterminate  somewhat,  but  as  a  per- 
son to  whom  he  is  bound  by  ties  of  obedience,  reverence, 
and  love;  and  though  he  often  speaks  of  the  gods,  the 
Supreme  Being  is  never  absent  from  his  mind.  He  is  the 
creator  of  the  world  and  the  ruler  of  all  things.  He  can 
not  conceive  that  the  universe  should  have  come  into  ex-| 
istence  or  should  continue  without  God.  The  glory  and 
harmony  of  the  creation  fill  him  with  devout  enthusiasm. 
*'  What  can  I,  a  lame  old  man,  do  other  than  praise  God? 
Were  I  a  nightingale,  I  should  perform  the  office  of  a 
nightingale;  were  I  a  swan,  that  of  a  swan;  but  as  I  am 
a  rational  being,  I  must  praise  God.  This  is  my  work, 
this  I  do,  nor  shall  I  cease  from  the  task  while  life  is  left 


Xii  EPICTETUS 

me.  And  upon  you  also  I  call  to  intone  this  hymn."  With 
his  last  breath  he  hopes  still  to  continue  his  sacred  song: 
f  "  Nothing  but  thanks  to  thee  do  I  utter,  because  thou 
hast  deemed  me  worthy  to  partake  with  thee  of  life's  feast, 
to  behold  thy  works,  and  to  follow  thy  government  of 
the  world."  Day  and  night  he  is  mindful  of  the  divine 
commands;  his  thoughts  are  raised  to  Heaven,  and  in 
earthly  things  he  sees  God,  not  as  the  Creator  alone,  but 
also  as  the  Father  who  watches  over  his  children  and  has 
care  of  even  the  least  among  them. 

Epictetus  takes  what  seems  to  him  true  and  good 
wherever  it  be  found.  He  has  no  respect  for  mere  theory, 
and  prizes  only  the  knowledge  which  is  brought  to  bear 
on  the  conduct  of  life.  The  beginning  of  philosophy,  he 
says,  is  the  turning  from  intellectual  conceit  and  the  recog- 
nition of  one's  own  helplessness  in  the  most  indispensable 
things.  To  talk  like  a  Stoic  is  easy;  to  live  like  one  is) 
difficult.  He  challenges  his  hearers  to  show  him  one  whose 
life  is  in  harmony  with  his  principles.  And  yet  all  that 
is  needed  is  the  will.  Will,  and  thou  art  free.  From  with-* 
in  come  salvation  and  ruin.  If  the  heart  is  set  upon  ex- 
ternal things,  a  god  can  not  rescue  thee.  But  let  us  forget 
the  past,  he  cries,  and  begin  anew.  God  has  placed  us  in? 
the  midst  of  the  battle  of  life ;  we  have  sworn  to  be  true  to 
him,  our  king  and  leader,  to  defend  at  whatever  cost  the 
post  he  has  assigned  us.  "  I  am  thine.  Where  will'st  thouj 
that  I  live — in  Rome,  or  Athens,  or  Thebes,  or  on  the  des- 
ert island  of  Gyara?    Only,  be  mindful  of  me  there." 

Epictetus  is  not  a  Christian :  he  knows  nothing  of  God's 
anger  and  mercy,  of  guilt  and  punishment,  of  redemption 
and  forgiveness.  In  contradiction  with  his  doctrine  of 
providence,  he  holds  to  the  old  Stoic  tradition  which  per- 
mits suicide,  and  in  certain  cases  makes  it  a  duty.  He 
who  can  live  content  wherever  God  places  him  is  ready 
to  quit  the  tabernacle  of  the  soul  if  the  house  is  too  full 


EPICTETUS  Xiii 

of  smoke.  Though  not  a  Christian,  he  certainly  knew 
something  of  the  Christian  religion.  He  lived  in  Rome 
as  student  and  teacher  of  philosophy  from  the  year  73  to 
95,  and  at  this  time  Christianity  had  penetrated  even  the 
higher  circles  of  Roman  society;  and  the  charge  of  atheism 
which  caused  Domitian  to  send  the  philosophers  into  exile 
led  him  also  to  banish  the  Christians,  many  of  whom  suf- 
fered martyrdom  while  Epictetus  was  delivering  his  dis- 
courses at  Nicopolis.  He  takes  occasion  to  mention  the 
heroism  with  which  these  Galileans,  as  he  calls  them,  met 
death.  They  die  without  fear,  he  says,  not  from  ignorance 
of  the  danger,  nor  from  weariness  of  life,  nor  from  mad- 
ness, nor  yet  from  philosophic  conviction,  but  from  habit. 
Galileans  is  not  the  name  by  which  the  Roman  writers  of 
this  period  designate  the  Christians.  They  did  not  call 
themselves  Galileans,  and  to  the  Jews  they  were  known  as 
Nazarenes.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  Epictetus  found 
the  word  in  the  New  Testament  writings,  where  the  epithet 
is  not  infrequently  applied  to  the  followers  of  Jesus.  Galen, 
who  was  educated  in  the  Stoic  philosophy  and  who  lived 
but  a  short  time  after  Epictetus,  speaks  of  the  contempt 
for  death  shown  by  "  those  men  who  are  called  Chris- 
tians." He  goes  on  to  say  that  their  doctrines  are  deliv- 
ered in  parables,  which  are  more  easily  understood  than 
abstruse  arguments,  and  that  their  lives  are  in  many  re- 
spects like  to  that  of  the  true  philosophers.  In  fact,  while 
the  world  view  of  the  Stoic  differs  radically  from  the  Chris- 
tian, the  moral  teaching  of  the  pagan  philosopher  and  of 
the  follower  of  Christ  is  often  much  the  same.  Both  at- 
tach the  highest  importance  to  religious  faith  and  senti- 
ment; both  hold  that  virtue  is  the  chief  good;  both  em- 
phasize the  principle  of  liberty,  and  draw  from  it  that  of 
free  personality;  both  declare  that  man  holds  his  earthly 
possessions  as  a  steward  of  the  divine  owner,  to  whom  he 
is  responsible  for  the  use  he  makes  of  them. 


xiv  EPICTETUS 

The  early  Stoics  had  taught  in  a  general  way  that  men 
are  the  children  of  God,  but  in  Epictetus  the  doctrine  is 
developed  with  a  fulness  which  is  found  in  no  writer  before 
the  birth  of  Christ.  He  preaches  with  fiery  zeal  that  all 
men  are  children  of  God,  and  that  even  slaves  must  be  con- 
sidered and  treated  as  brothers.  For  him,  as  in  the  Gos- 
pel, every  human  being  is  one's  neighbour.  His  ideal  of 
the  Cynic  or  perfect  Stoic  is  that  of  a  Christian  apostle; 
his  view  of  celibacy  seems  to  have  been  taken  from  St. 
Paul.  The  portrait  he  draws  of  Hercules,  as  a  conscious 
son  of  God  and  saviour  of  the  world,  is  very  like  the  char- 
acter of  the  divine  Master  as  revealed  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  unlike  that  of  the  traditional  Hercules,  who 
stands  at  the  parting  of  the  ways. 

But  Epictetus — though  he  certainly  knew  something  of 
the  Christian  faith,  and  though  his  "  Manual  "  was  a  favour- 
ite book  of  some  of  the  early  Christians,  and  became,  with 
simply  a  change  of  certain  words,  a  kind  of  rule  for  St. 
Nilus  and  the  anchorets  of  Mount  Sinai — remains  a  Stoic. 
For  him  God  is  not  love,  but  the  eternal  destiny,  and  his 
enthusiasm  for  humanity  is  dominated  by  his  resignation 
to  fate.  His  religion  is  a  philosophical  piety  founded  on 
self-surrender  to  the  inexorable  laws  of  Nature.  He  is, 
nevertheless,  one  of  those  who  have  had  the  clearest  in- 
sight into  the  duties  of  man,  and  his  utterances  have  now 
for  eighteen  hundred  years  been  a  source  of  patience,  cour- 
age, and  strength  to  minds  of  widely  varying  opinions  and 
beliefs.  He  is  a  genuine  man,  whose  true  image  looks  out 
upon  us  from  these  "  Discourses."  In  reading  him  we 
lose  sight  of  his  metaphysical  theories,  and  are  mindful 
only  of  the  great  principles  which  he  expresses  with  rare 
force  and  which  underlie  all  right  human  life. 

John  Lancaster  Spalding. 


THE  AUTHOR'S   PREFACE 


ARRIAN  to  LUCIUS  GELLIUS,  zvith  wishes  for  his 
happiness:  I  neither^  wrote  these  "  Discourses  ^  of 
Epictetus  "  in  the  way  in  which  a  man  might  write 
such  things;  nor  did  I  make  them  public  myself,  inasmuch 
as  I  declare  that  I  did  not  even  write  them.  But  whatever 
I  heard  him  say,  the  same  I  attempted  to  write  down  in 
his  own  words  as  nearly  as  possible,  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
serving them  as  memorials  to  myself  afterward  of  the 
thoughts  and  the  freedom  of  speech  of  Epictetus.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  "  Discourses  "  are  naturally  such  as  a  man 
would  address  without  preparation  to  another,  not  such 
as  a  man  would  write  with  the  view  of  others  reading 
them.  Now,  being  such,  I  do  not  know  how  they  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  public,  without  either  my  consent  or 
my  knowledge.  But  it  concerns  me  little  if  I  shall  be  con- 
sidered incompetent  to  write;  and  it  concerns  Epictetus 
not  at  all  if  any  man  shall  despise  his  words;  for  at  the. 
time  when  he  uttered  them  it  was  plain  that  he  had  no 
other  purpose  than  to  move  the  minds  of  his  hearers  to 
the  best  things.  If,  indeed,  these  "  Discourses  "  should 
produce  this  eflfect,  they  will  have,  I  think,  the  result  which 
the  words  of  philosophers  ought  to  have.  But  if  they  shall 
not,  let  those  who  read  them  know  that,  when  Epictetus 
delivered  them,  the  hearer  could  not  avoid  being  affected 
in  the  way  that  Epictetus  wished  him  to  be.     But  if  the 


xvi  EPICTETUS 

"  Discourses  "  themselves,  as  they  are  written,  do  not  effect 
this  result,  it  may  be  that  the  fault  is  mine,  or,  it  may  be, 
that  the  thing  is  unavoidable. 
Farewell! 

Note 

*  A.  Gellius  (i,  2,  and  xvii,  19)  speaks  of  the  "  Discourses  of  Epictetus  " 
as  arranged  by  Arrian  ;  Gellius  (xix,  i)  speaks  of  a  fifth  book  of  these 
"  Discourses,"  but  only  four  are  extant  and  some  fragments.  The  whole 
number  of  books  was  eight,  as  Photius  (Cod.  58)  says.  There  is  also  an 
"  Encheiridion  "  or  "  Manual,"  consisting  of  short  pieces  selected  from 
the  "  Discourses  of  Epictetus,"  and  the  valuable  commentary  on  the 
"  Encheiridion"  written  by  Simplicius  in  the  sixth  century  a.  d.,  in  the 
reign  of  Justinian. 

Arrian  explains  in  a  manner  what  he  means  by  saying  that  he  did  not 
write  these  "  Discourses  of  Epictetus"  ;  but  he  does  not  explain  his  mean- 
ing when  he  says  that  he  did  not  make  them  public.  He  tells  us  that  he 
did  attempt  to  write  down  in  the  words  of  Epictetus  what  the  philosopher 
said  ;  but  how  it  happened  that  they  were  first  published,  without  his 
knowledge  or  consent,  Arrian  does  not  say.  It  appears,  however,  that  he 
did  see  the  "Discourses"  when  they  were  published;  and  as  Schweig- 
Jiauser  remarks,  he  would  naturally  correct  any  errors  that  he  detected, 
and  so  there  would  be  an  edition  revised  by  himself.  Schweighauser 
has  a  note  (i,  ch.  26,  13)  on  the  difficulties  which  we  now  find  in  the 
"  Discourses." 


CONTENTS 


BOOK   I 

CHAPTHR  PACK 

I,     Of  the  things  that  are  in  our  power,  and  not  in  our  power   .  i 
II.     How  a  man  on  every  occasion  can  maintain  his  proper 

character 6 

III.  How  a  man  should  proceed  from  the  principle  of  God  being 

the  Father  of  all  men  to  the  rest lo 

IV.  Of  progress  or  improvement 12 

V.     Against  the  academics 16 

VI.     Of  Providence 17 

VII.     Of  the  use  of  sophistical,  hypothetical,  and  the  like  argu- 
ments        .         .        .         .        .         .         .         .         .        .21 

VIII.     That  the  faculties  are  not  safe  to  the  uninstructed        .         .  25 
IX.     How  from  the  fact  that  we  are  akin  to  God  a  man  may 

proceed  to  the  consequences 27 

X.     Against  those  who  eagerly  seek  preferment  at  Rome  .        .  31 

XI.     Of  natural  aflfection 33 

XII.     Of  contentment 37 

XIII.  How  everything  may  be  done  acceptably  to  the  gods  .        .  41 

XIV.  That  the  Deity  oversees  all  things 42 

XV.     What  philosophy  promises 44 

XVI.     Of  Providence 45 

XVII.     That  the  logical  art  is  necessary 47 

XVIII.     That  we  ought  not  to  be  angry  with  the  errors  (faults)  of 

others 51 

XIX.     How  we  should  behave  to  tyrants 55 

XX.     How  reason  contemplates  itself 58 

XXI.     Against  those  who  wish  to  be  admired        .        .        ,        .61 

XXII.     Of  prascognitions 62 

XXIII.  Against  Epicurus 65 

XXIV.  How  we  should  struggle  with  circumstances        .        .        .66 
XXV.     On  the  same  subject 69 

XXVI.     What  the  law  of  life  is 73 

xvii 


XVlll 


EPICTETUS 


CHAPTER 

XXVIl. 

XXVIII. 

,     XXIX. 
XXX. 


In  how  many  ways  appearances  exist,  and  what  aids 

we  should  provide  against  them 76 

That  we  ought  not  to  be  angry  with  men ;  and  what  are 

the  small  and  great  things  among  men         ...  79 

On  constancy  (or  firmness) 83 

What  we  ought  to  have  ready  in  difficult  circumstances  91 


92 

98 

Id 

102 
104 
108 
112 
114 


119 
123 
127 
130 


BOOK   II 

I.  That  courage  is  not  inconsistent  with  caution . 

II.  Of  tranquility  (freedom  from  perturbation) 

III.  To  those  who  recommend  persons  to  philosophers. 

IV.  Against  a  person  who  had  once  been  detected  in  adul 

tery        ....... 

V.     How  magnanimity  is  consistent  with  care 
VI.     Of  indifference  ...... 

VII.     How  we  ought  to  use  divination 
VIII.     What  is  the  nature  of  the  good 

IX.  That  when  we  can  not  fulfil  that  which  the  character  of 
a  man  promises,  we  assume  the  character  of  a  philoso- 
pher       

X.     How  we  may  discover  the  duties  of  life  from  names 
XI.     What  the  beginning  of  philosophy  is        .... 
XII.     Of  disputation  or  discussion 

XIII.  On  anxiety  (solicitude) 133 

XIV.  To  Naso 137 

XV.     To  or  against  those  who  obstinately  persist  in  what  they 

have  determined 141 

XVI.     That  we  do  not  strive  to  use  our  opinions  about  good 

and  evil 

XVII.     How  we  must  adapt  preconceptions  to  particular  cases  . 
XVIII.     How  we  should  struggle  against  appearances . 
XIX.     Against  those  who  embrace  philosophical  opinions  only 

in  words 

XX.     Against  the  Epicureans  and  Academics  .... 

XXI.     Of  inconsistency 170 

XXII.     On  friendship 173 

XXIII.  On  the  power  of  speaking 179 

XXIV.  To  (or  against)  a  person  who  was  one  of  those  who 

were  not  valued  (esteemed)  by  him      .        .        .        .186 

XXV.     That  logic  is  necessary 190 

XXVI.    What  is  the  property  of  error 191 


144 
150 

155 

159 
164 


CONTENTS 


XIX 


BOOK  III 

CHAPTER  FACE 

I.     Of  finery  in  dress 192 

II.     In  what  a  man  ought  to  be  exercised  who  has  made  profi- 
ciency; and  that  we  neglect  the  chief  things  .        .         .  198 

III.  What  is  the  matter  on  which  a  good  man  should  be  em- 

ployed, and  in  what  we  ought  chiefly  to  practise  ourselves  201 

IV.  Against  a  person  who  showed  his  partisanship  in  an  un- 

seemly way  in  a  theatre 204 

V.     Against  those  who  on  account  of  sickness  go  away  home  .  206 

VI.     Miscellaneous 209 

VII.     To  the  administrator  of  the  free  cities  who  was  an  Epi- 
curean               •        .        .        .211 

VIII.     How  we  must  exercise  ourselves  against  appearances         .  216 
IX.     To  a  certain  rhetorician  who  was  going  up  to  Rome  on  a 

suit 217 

X.     In  what  manner  we  ought  to  bear  sickness         .        .        .  220 

XI.     Certain  miscellaneous  matters 223 

XII.     About  exercise 224 

XIII.  What  solitude  is,  and  what  kind  of  person  a  solitary  man  is  227 

XIV.  Certain  miscellaneous  matters 231 

XV.     That  we  ought  to  proceed  with  circumspection  in  every- 
thing           233 

XVI.    That  we  ought  with  caution  to  enter  into  familiar  inter- 
course with  men 236 

XVII.     Of  Providence 238 

XVIII.     That  we  ought  not  to  be  disturbed  by  any  news         .        .  239 
XIX.     What  is  the  condition  of  a  common  kind  of  man  and  of  a 

philosopher 240 

XX.     That  we  can  derive  advantage  from  all  external  things  .     .  241 
XXI.     Against   those  who    readily  come    to   the   profession   of 

sophists 244 

XXII.     About  cynicism 248 

XXIII.  To  those  who  read  and  discuss  for  the  sake  of  ostentation  263 

XXIV.  That  we  ought  not  to  be  moved  by  a  desire  for  those 

things  which  are  not  in  our  power 269 

XXV.     To  those  who  fall  off  (desist)  from  their  purpose        .        .  285 

XXVI.     To  those  who  fear  want 287 


BOOK  IV 

I.    About  freedom ,       . 

II.     Of  familiar  intimacy 

III.     What  things  we  should  exchange  for  other  things 


293 
319 
321 


XX  EPICTETUS 

CHAPTER  TAGM 

IV.     To  those  who  are  desirous  of  passing  life  in  tranquility     .  323 

V.     Against  the  quarrelsome  and  ferocious       ....  330 

VI.     Against  those  who  lament  over  being  pitied       .        .        .  336 

VII.     On  freedom  from  fear 342 

VIII.     Against  those  who  hastily  rush  into  the  use  of  the  philo- 
sophic dress 349 

IX,     To  a  person  who  had  been  changed  to  a  character  of 

shamelessness 355 

X.     What  things  we  ought  to  despise  and  what  things  we 

ought  to  value 358 

XI.     About  purity  (cleanliness) 364 

XII.     On  attention 369 

XIII.    Against  or  to  those  who  readily  tell  their  affairs        .        .  372 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 

The  Fates Frontispiece 

From  a  painting  by  Paul  Thumann. 

Diogenes 66 

From  a  painting  by  Jean  L£an  G6r6me. 

The  Augurs 202 

From  a  painting  by  Jean  Ldon  G^rflme. 
I 

MEDITATIONS 
Marcus  Aurelhjs       Frontispiece 

From  a  bust  in  Rome. 

Hadrian's  Tomb 78 


DISCOURSES 


BOOK  I 


CHAPTER  I 

OF  THE  THINGS  WHICH  ARE  IN  OUR  POWER,  AND  NOT  IN  OUR 

POWER 

OF  all  the  faculties  (except  that  which  I  shall  soon 
mention),  you  will  find  not  one  which  is  capable  of 
contemplating  itself,  and,  consequently,  not  capa- 
ble either  of  approving  or  disapproving.  How  far 
does  the  grammatic  art  possess  the  contemplating  power? 
As  far  as  forming  a  judgment  about  what  is  written  and 
spoken.  And  how  far  music?  As  far  as  judging  about 
melody.  Does  either  of  them  then  contemplate  itself?  By 
no  means.  But  when  you  must  write  something  to  your 
friend,  grammar  will  tell  you  what  words  you  should  write ; 
but  whether  you  should  write  or  not,  grammar  will  not  tell 
you.  And  so  it  is  with  music  as  to  musical  sounds;  but 
whether  you  should  sing  at  the  present  time  and  play  on  the 
lute,  or  do  neither,  music  will  not  tell  you.  What  faculty 
then  will  tell  you?  That  which  contemplates  both  itself 
and  all  other  things.  And  what  is  this  faculty?  The 
rational  faculty ;  for  this  is  the  only  faculty  that  we  have  re- 
ceived which  examines  itself,  what  it  is,  and  what  power  it 
has,  and  what  is  the  value  of  this  gift,  and  examines  all  other 
faculties:  for  what  else  is  there  which  tells  us  that  golden 
X  1 


2  EPICTETUS 

things  are  beautiful,  for  they  do  not  say  so  themselves? 
Evidently  it  is  the  faculty  which  is  capable  of  judging  of  ap- 
pearances.* What  else  judges. of  music,  grammar,  and  the 
other  faculties,  proves  their  uses,  and  points  out  the  occa- 
sions for  using  them?     Nothing  else. 

As  then  it  was  fit  to  be  so,  that  which  is  best  of  all 
and  supreme  over  all  is  the  only  thing  which  the  gods  have 
placed  in  our  power,  the  right  use  of  appearances;  but  all 
other  things  they  have  not  placed  in  our  power.  Was  it  be- 
cause they  did  not  choose  ?  I  indeed  think  that,  if  they  had 
been  able,  they  would  have  put  these  other  things  also  in  our 
power,  but  they  certainly  could  not.^  For  as  we  exist  on  the 
earth,  and  are  bound  to  such  a  body  and  to  such  companions, 
how  was  it  possible  for  us  not  to  be  hindered  as  to  these 
things  by  externals  ? 

But  what  says  Zeus?  Epictetus,  if  it  were  possible,  I 
would  have  made  both  your  little  body  and  your  little  prop- 
erty free  and  not  exposed  to  hindrance.  But  now  be  not 
ignorant  of  this :  this  body  is  not  yours,  but  it  is  clay  finely 
tempered.  And  since  I  was  not  able  to  do  for  you  what  I 
have  mentioned,  I  have  given  you  a  small  portion  of  us,^  this 
faculty  of  pursuing  an  object  and  avoiding  it,  and  the  faculty 
of  desire  and  aversion,  and,  in  a  word,  the  faculty  of  using 
the  appearances  of  things ;  and  if  you  will  take  care  of  this 
faculty  and  consider  it  your  only  possession,  you  will  never 
be  hindered,  never  meet  with  impediments;  you  will  not 
lament,  you  will  not  blame,  you  will  not  flatter  any  person. 

Well,  do  these  seem  to  you  small  matters?  I  hope  not. 
Be  content  with  them  then  and  pray  to  the  gods.  But  now 
when  it  is  in  our  power  to  look  after  one  thing,  and 
to  attach  ourselves  to  it,  we  prefer  to  look  after  many 
things,  and  to  be  bound  to  many  things,  to  the  body 
and  to  property,  and  to  brother  and  to  friend,  and  to 
child  and  to  slave.  Since  then  we  are  bound  to  many 
things,  we  are  depressed  by  them  and  dragged  down.  For 
this  reason,  when  the  weather  is  not  fit  for  sailing,  we  sit 
down  and  torment  ourselves,  and  continually  look  out  to  see 
what  wind  is  blowing.  It  is  north.  What  is  that  to  us? 
When  will  the  west  wind  blow?  When  it  shall  choose,  my 
good  man,  or  when  it  shall  please  .^olus;   for  God  has  not 


DISCOURSES  3 

made  you  the  manager  of  the  winds,  but  ^olus.  What 
then  ?  We  must  make  the  best  use  that  we  can  of  the  things 
which  are  in  our  power,  and  use  the  rest  according  to  their 
nature.     What  is  their  nature  then  ?     As  God  may  please. 

Must  I  then  alone  have  my  head  cut  off?  What,  would 
you  have  all  men  lose  their  heads  that  you  may  be  con- 
soled? Will  you  not  stretch  out  your  neck  as  Lateranus* 
did  at  Rome  when  Nero  ordered  him  to  be  beheaded  ?  For 
when  he  had  stretched  out  his  neck,  and  received  a  feeble 
blow,  which  made  him  draw  it  in  for  a  moment,  he  stretched 
it  out  again.  And  a  little  before,  when  he  was  visited  by 
Epaphroditus,"^  Nero's  freedman,  who  asked  him  about  the 
cause  of  offence  which  he  had  given,  he  said,  "If  I  choose  to 
tell  anything,  I  will  tell  your  master." 

What  then  should  a  man  have  in  readiness  in  such  circum- 
stances ?  What  else  than  this  ?  What  is  mine,  and  what  is 
not  mine ;  and  what  is  permitted  to  me,  and  what  is  not  per- 
mitted to  me.  I  must  die.  Must  I  then  die  lamenting?  I 
must  be  put  in  chains.  Must  I  then  also  lament?  I  must 
go  into  exile.  Does  any  man  then  hinder  me  from  going 
with  smiles  and  cheerfulness  and  contentment  ?  Tell  me  the 
secret  which  you  possess.  I  will  not,  for  this  is  in  my  power. 
But  I  will  put  you  in  chains.®  Man,  what  are  you  talking 
about?  Me  in  chains?  You  may  fetter  my  leg,  but  my 
will  not  even  Zeus  himself  can  overpower.  I  will  throw  you 
into  prison.  My  poor  body,  you  mean.  I  will  cut  your 
head  off.  When  then  have  I  told  you  that  my  head  alone 
can  not  be  cut  off  ?  These  are  the  things  which  philosophers 
should  meditate  on,  which  they  should  write  daily,  in  which 
they  should  exercise  themselves. 

Thrasea"^  used  to  say,  I  would  rather  be  killed  to-day  than 
be  banished  to-morrow.  What  then  did  Rufus^  say  to  him  ? 
If  you  choose  death  as  the  heavier  misfortune,  how  great 
is  the  folly  of  your  choice?  But  if,  as  the  lighter,  who  has 
given  you  the  choice  ?  Will  you  not  study  to  be  content  with 
that  which  has  been  given  to  you  ? 

What  then  did  Agrippinus®  say?  He  said,  "I  am  not  a 
hindrance  to  myself."  When  it  was  reported  to  him  that 
his  trial  was  going  on  in  the  Senate,  he  said,  "I  hope  it  may 
turn  out  wellj  but  it  is  the  fifth  hour  of  the  day" — this  was 


^  EPICTETUS 

the  time  when  he  was  used  to  exercise  himself  and  then  take 
the  cold  bath — "let  us  go  and  take  our  exercise."  After  he 
had  taken  his  exercise,  one  comes  and  tells  him,  "You  have 
been  condemned."  "To  banishment,"  he  replies,  "or  to 
death?"  "To  banishment."  "What  about  my  property?" 
"It  is  not  taken  from  you."  "Let  us  go  to  Aricia,  then,"^^ 
he  said,  "and  dine." 

This  it  is  to  have  studied  what  a  man  ought  to  study; 
to  have  made  desire,  aversion,  free  from  hindrance,  and  free 
from  all  that  a  man  would  avoid.  I  must  die.  If  now,  I 
am  ready  to  die.  If,  after  a  short  time,  I  now  dine  because 
it  is  the  dinner-hour ;  after  this  I  will  then  die.  How  ?  Like 
a  man  who  gives  up  what  belongs  to  another. 

NOTES 

*  The  Stoics  gave  the  name  of  appearances  ( <f)avra6tat)  to  all  im- 
pressions received  by  the  senses,  and  to  all  emotions  caused  by  external 
things. 

*  Compare  Antoninus,  ii.  3.  Epictetus  does  not  intend  to  limit  the 
power  of  the  gods,  but  he  means  that  the  constitution  of  things  being 
what  it  is,  they  can  not  do  contradictories.  They  have  so  constituted 
things  that  man  is  hindered  by  externals.  How  then  could  they  give 
to  man  a  power  of  not  being  hindered  by  externals?  Seneca  (De 
Providentia)  says :  "But  it  may  be  said,  many  things  happen  which 
cause  sadness,  fear,  and  are  hard  to  bear.  Because  (God  says)  I  could 
not  save  you  from  them,  I  have  armed  your  minds  against  all."  This  is 
the  answer  to  those  who  imagine  that  they  have  disproved  the  common 
assertion  of  the  omnipotence  of  God,  when  they  ask  whether  He  can 
combine  inherent  contradictions,  whether  He  can  cause  two  and  two  to 
make  five.    This  is  indeed  a  very  absurd  way  of  talking. 

*  Schweighauser  observes  that  these  faculties  of  pursuit  and  avoid- 
ance, and  of  desire  and  aversion,  and  even  the  faculty  of  using  appear- 
ances, belong  to  animals  as  well  as  to  man ;  but  animals  in  using  ap- 
pearances are  moved  by  passion  only,  and  do  not  understand  what  they 
are  doing,  while  in  man  these  passions  are  under  his  control.  Salmasius 
proposed  to  change  rifiiTspov  into  vjuerepov,  to  remove  the  difficulty 
about  these  animal  passions  being  called  "a  small  portion  of  us  (the 
gods)."  Schweighauser,  however,  though  he  sees  the  difficulty,  does 
not  accept  the  emendation.  Perhaps  Arrian  has  here  imperfectly  repre- 
sented what  his  master  said,  and  perhaps  he  did  not. 

*  Plautius  Lateranus,  consul-elect,  was  charged  with  being  engaged 
in  Piso's  conspiracy  against  Nero.  He  was  hurried  to  execution  without 
being  allowed  to  see  his  children ;  and  though  the  tribune  who  executed 
him  was  privy  to  the  plot,  Lateranus  said  nothing.  (Tacit.  Ann.  xv. 
49,  60.) 

Epaphroditus  was  a  freedman  of  Nero,  and  once  the  master  of 
Epictetus.  He  was  Nero's  secretary.  One  good  act  is  recorded  of 
him :  he  helped  Nero  to  kill  himself,  and  for  this  act  he  was  killed  by 
Domitian  (Suetonius,  Domitian,  c.  14). 


DISCOURSES  5 

'  This  is  an  imitation  of  a  passage  in  the  Bacchae  of  Euripides  (v. 
492,  etc.),  which  is  also  imitated  by  Horace  (Epp.  i.  16). 

'  Thrasea  Paetus,  a  Stoic  philosopher,  who  was  ordered  in  Nero's 
time  to  put  himself  to  death  (Tacit.  Ann.  xvi.  21-35).  He  was  the 
husband  of  Arria,  whose  mother  Arria,  the  wife  of  Caecina  Paetus, 
in  the  time  of  the  Emperor  Claudius,  heroically  showed  her  husband 
the  way  to  die  (Plinius,  Letters,  iii.  16).  Martial  has  immortalised  the 
elder  Arria  in  a  famous  epigram  (i.  14)  : — 

"When  Arria  to  her  Paetus  gave  the  sword 
Which  her  own  hand  from  her  chaste  bosom  drew, 
'This  wound,'  she  said,  'believe  me,  gives  no  pain, 
But  that  will  pain  me  which  thy  hand  will  do.'  " 

•  C.  Musonius  Rufus,  a  Tuscan  by  birth,  of  equestrian  rank,  a  phi- 
losopher and  Stoic  (Tacit.  Hist.  iii.  81). 

*  Paconius  Agrippinus  was  condemned  in  Nero's  time.  The  charge 
against  him  was  that  he  inherited  his  father's  hatred  of  the  head  of  the 
Roman  state  (Tacit.  Ann.  xvi.  28).  The  father  of  Agrippinus  had  been 
put  to  death  under  Tiberius  (Suetonius,  Tib.  c.  61). 

"  Aricia,  about  twenty  Roman  miles  from  Rome,  on  the  Via  Appia. 


CHAPTER  II 

HOW  A  MAN  ON  EVERY  OCCASION  CAN  MAINTAIN  HIS  PROPER 

CHARACTER 

TO  the  rational  animal  only  is  the  irrational  intolerable ; 
but  that  which  is  rational  is  tolerable.  Blows  are 
not  naturally  intolerable.  How  is  that?  See  how 
the  Lacedaemonians^  endure  whipping  when  they 
have  learned  that  whipping  is  consistent  with  reason.  To 
hang  yourself  is  not  intolerable.  When  then  you  have  the 
opinion  that  it  is  rational,  you  go  and  hang  yourself.  In 
short,  if  we  observe,  we  shall  find  that  the  animal  man  is 
pained  by  nothing  so  much  as  by  that  which  is  irrational; 
and,  on  the  contrary,  attracted  to  nothing  so  much  as  to  that 
which  is  rational. 

But  the  rational  and  the  irrational  appear  in  a  different 
way  to  different  persons,  just  as  the  good  and  the  bad,  the 
profitable  and  the  unprofitable.  For  this  reason,  particu- 
larly, we  need  discipline,  in  order  to  learn  how  to  adapt  the 
preconception  of  the  rational  and  the  irrational  to  the  several 
things  comformably  to  nature.  But  in  order  to  determine 
the  rational  and  the  irrational,  we  use  not  only  the  estimates 
of  external  things,  but  we  consider  also  what  is  appropriate 
to  each  person.  For  to  one  man  it  is  consistent  with  reason 
to  hold  a  chamber  pot  for  another,  and  to  look  to  this  only, 
that  if  he  does  not  hold  it,  he  will  receive  stripes,  and  he  will 
not  receive  his  food :  but  if  he  shall  hold  the  pot,  he  will  not 
suffer  anything  hard  or  disagreeable.  But  to  another  man 
not  only  does  the  holding  of  a  chamber  pot  appear  intolerable 
for  himself,  but  intolerable  also  for  him  to  allow  another  to 
do  this  office  for  him.  If  then  you  ask  me  whether  you 
should  hold  the  chamber  pot  or  not,  I  shall  say  to  you  that 
the  receiving  of  food  is  worth  more  than  the  not  receiving  of 
it,  and  the  being  scourged  is  a  greater  indignity  than  not 
being  scourged;  so  that  if  you  measure  your  interests  by 
these  things,  go  and  hold  the  chamber  pot.  "But  this,"  you 
say,  "would  not  be  worthy  of  me."     Well  then,  it  is  you 

6 


DISCOURSES  7 

who  must  introduce  this  consideration  into  the  inquiry,  not 
I ;  for  it  is  you  who  know  yourself,  how  much  you  are  worth 
to  yourself,  and  at  what  price  you  sell  yourself ;  for  men  sell 
themselves  at  various  prices. 

For  this  reason,  when  Florus  was  deliberating  whether  he 
should  go  down  to  Nero's^  spectacles,  and  also  perform  in 
them  himself,  Agrippinus  said  to  him,  "Go  down" :  and 
when  Florus  asked  Agrippinus,  "Why  do  not  you  go  down?" 
Agrippinus  replied,  "Because  I  do  not  even  deliberate  about 
the  matter."  For  he  who  has  once  brought  himself  to  delib- 
erate about  such  matters,  and  to  calculate  the  value  of  exter- 
nal things,  comes  very  near  to  those  who  have  forgotten  their 
own  character.  For  why  do  you  ask  me  the  question, 
whether  death  is  preferable  or  life?  I  say  life.  Pain  or 
pleasure?  I  say  pleasure.  "But  if  I  do  not  take  a  part  in  the 
tragic  acting,  I  shall  have  my  head  struck  off."  Go  then  and 
take  a  part,  but  I  will  not.  "Why?"  Because  you  con- 
sider yourself  to  be  only  one  thread  of  those  which  are  in  the 
tunic.  Well  then  it  was  fitting  for  you  to  take  care  how  you 
should  be  like  the  rest  of  men,  just  as  the  thread  has  no  de- 
sign to  be  anything  superior  to  the  other  threads.  But  I 
wish  to  be  purple,'  that  small  part  which  is  bright,  and  makes 
all  the  rest  appear  graceful  and  beautiful.  Why  then  do 
you  tell  me  to  make  myself  like  the  many  ?  and  if  I  do,  how 
shall  I  still  be  purple  ? 

Priscus  Helvidius*  also  saw  this,  and  acted  conformably. 
For  when  Vespasian  sent  and  commanded  him  not  to  go  into 
the  senate,  he  replied,  "It  is  in  your  power  not  to  allow  me 
to  be  a  member  of  the  senate,  but  so  long  as  I  am,  I  must  go 
in."  "Well,  go  in  then,"  says  the  emperor,  "but  say  noth- 
ing." "Do  not  ask  my  opinion,  and  I  will  be  silent."  "But 
I  must  ask  your  opinion."  "And  I  must  say  what  I  think 
right."  "But  if  you  do,  I  shall  put  you  to  death."  "When 
then  did  I  tell  you  that  I  am  immortal?  You  will  do  your 
part,  and  I  will  do  mine :  it  is  your  part  to  kill ;  it  is  mine  to 
die,  but  not  in  fear :  yours  to  banish  me ;  mine  to  depart  with- 
out sorrow." 

What  good  then  did  Priscus  do,  who  was  only  a  single 
person?  And  what  good  does  the  purple  do  for  the  toga? 
Why,  what  else  than  this,  that  it  is  conspicuous  in  the  toga  as 


8  EPICTETUS 

purple,  and  is  displayed  also  as  a  fine  example  to  all  other 
things?  But  in  such  circumstances  another  would  have 
replied  to  Caesar  who  forbade  him  to  enter  the  senate,  "I 
thank  you  for  sparing  me."  But  such  a  man  Vespasian 
would  not  even  have  forbidden  to  enter  the  senate,  for  he 
knew  that  he  would  either  sit  there  like  an  earthen  vessel,  or, 
if  he  spoke,  he  would  say  what  Caesar  wished  and  add  even 
more. 

In  this  way  an  athlete  also  acted  who  was  in  danger  of 
dying  unless  his  private  parts  were  amputated.  His  brother 
came  to  the  athlete,  who  was  a  philosopher,  and  said,  "Come, 
brother,  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?  Shall  we  amputate  this 
member  and  return  to  the  gymnasium?"  But  the  athlete 
persisted  in  his  resolution  and  died.  When  some  one  asked 
Epictetus,  how  he  did  this,  as  an  athlete  or  a  philosopher? 
"As  a  man,"  Epictetus  replied,  "and  a  man  who  had  been 
proclaimed  among  the  athletes  at  the  Olympic  games  and 
had  contended  in  them,  a  man  who  had  been  familiar  with 
such  a  place,  and  not  merely  anointed  in  Baton's  '^  school." 
Another  would  have  allowed  even  his  head  to  be  cut  off,  if 
he  could  have  lived  without  it.-*  Such  is  that  regard  to  char- 
acter which  is  so  strong  in  those  who  have  been  accustomed 
to  introduce  it  of  themselves  and  conjoined  with  other  things 
into  their  deliberations. 

"Come  then,  Epictetus,  shave^  yourself."  If  I  am  a  philo- 
sopher, I  answer,  I  will  not  shave  myself.  "But  I  will  take 
off  your  head  ?"  If  that  will  do  you  any  good,  take  it  off. 

Some  person  asked,  how  then  shall  every  man  among  us 
perceive  what  is  suitable  to  his  character?  "How,"  he  re- 
plied, "does  the  bull  alone,  when  the  lion  has  attacked,  dis- 
cover his  own  powers  and  put  himself  forward  in  defence 
of  the  whole  herd  ?  It  is  plain  that  with  the  powers  the  per- 
ception of  having  them  is  immediately  conjoined :  and,  there- 
fore, whoever  of  us  has  such  powers  will  not  be  ignorant  of 
them.  Now  a  bull  is  not  made  suddenly,  nor  a  brave  man ; 
but  we  must  discipline  ourselves  in  the  winter  for  the  sum- 
mer campaign,  and  not  rashly  run  upon  that  which  does  not 
concern  us," 

Only  consider  at  what  price  you  sell  your  own  will :  if 
for  no  other  reason,  at  least  for  this,  that  you  sell  it  not  for 


DISCOURSES  9 

a  small  sum.  But  that  which  is  great  and  superior  perhaps 
belongs  to  Socrates  and  such  as  are  like  him.  Why  then, 
if  we  are  naturally  such,  are  not  a  very  great  number  of  us 
like  him  ?  Is  it  true  then  that  all  horses  become  swift,  that 
all  dogs  are  skilled  in  tracking  footprints?  What  then, 
since  I  am  naturally  dull,  shall  I,  for  this  reason,  take  no 
pains  ?  I  hope  not.  Epictetus  is  not  superior  to  Socrates ; 
but  if  he  is  not  inferior,  this  is  enough  for  me;  for  I  shall 
never  be  a  Milo,'^  and  yet  I  do  not  neglect  my  body;  nor 
shall  I  be  a  Croesus,  and  yet  I  do  not  neglect  my  property; 
nor,  in  a  word,  do  we  neglect  looking  after  anything  be- 
cause we  despair  of  reaching  the  highest  degree. 

NOTES 

*  The  spartan  boys  used  to  be  whipped  at  the  altar  of  Artemis  Orthia 
till  blood  flowed  abundantly,  and  sometimes  till  death;  but  they  never 
uttered  even  a  groan  (Cicero,  Tuscul.  ii.  14;  v.  27). 

'  Nero  was  passionately  fond  of  scenic  representations,  and  used  to 
induce  the  descendants  of  noble  families,  whose  poverty  made  them 
consent,  to  appear  on  the  stage  (Tacitus,  Annals,  xiv.  14,  Suetonius, 
Nero,  21). 

*  The  "purple"  is  the  broad  purple  border  on  the  toga  named  the  toga 
prcBtexta,  worn  by  certain  Roman  magistrates  and  some  others,  and  by 

senators,  it  is  said,  on  certain  days  (Cic.  Phil.  ii.  43). 

*  Helvidius  Priscus,  a  Roman  senator  and  a  philosopher,  is  com- 
mended by  Tacitus  (Hist.  iv.  4,  5)  as  an  honest  man:  "He  followed 
the  philosophers  who  considered  those  things  only  to  be  good  which 
are  virtuous,  those  only  to  be  bad  which  are  foul ;  and  he  reckoned 
power,  rank,  and  all  other  things  which  are  external  to  the  mind  as 
neither  good  nor  bad."  Vespasian,  probably  in  a  fit  of  passion,  being 
provoked  by  Helvidius,  ordered  him  to  be  put  to  death,  and  then  re- 
voked the  order  when  it  was  too  late  (Suetonius,  Vespasianus,  15). 

°  Baton  was  elected  for  two  years  gymnasiarch  or  superintendent  of 
a  gymnasium  in  or  about  the  time  of  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus. 

This  is  supposed,  as  Casaubon  says,  to  refer  to  Domitian's  order  to 
the  philosophers  to  go  into  exile.  Some  of  them,  in  order  to  conceal 
their  profession  of  philosophy,  shaved  their  beards.  Epictetus  would 
not  take  oflF  his  beard. 

'  Milo  of  Croton,  a  great  athlete. 


CHAPTER  III 

HOW  A  MAN  SHOULD  PROCEED  FROM  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  GOD 
BEING   THE   FATHER   OF   ALL   MEN   TO   THE   REST 

IF  a  man  should  be  able  to  assent  to  this  doctrine  as  he 
ought,  that  we  are  all  sprung  from  God^  in  an  especial 
manner,  and  that  God  is  the  father  of  both  men  and  of 
gods,  I  suppose  that  he  would  never  have  any  ignoble 
or  mean  thoughts  about  himself.  But  if  Caesar  (the  em- 
peror) should  adopt  you,  no  one  could  endure  your  arro- 
gance; and  if  you  know  that  you  are  the  son  of 
Zeus,  will  you  not  be  elated?  Yet  we  do  not  so; 
but  since  these  two  things  are  mingled  in  the  gen- 
eration of  man,  body  in  common  with  the  animals, 
and  reason  and  intelligence  in  common  with  the 
gods,  many  incline  to  this  kinship,  which  is  miserable  and 
mortal;  and  some  few  to  that  which  is  divine  and  happy. 
Since  then  it  is  of  necessity  that  every  man  uses  everything 
according  to  the  opinion  which  he  has  about  it,  those,  the 
few,  who  think  that  they  are  formed  for  fidelity  and  modesty 
and  a  sure  use  of  appearances,  have  no  mean  or  ignoble 
thoughts  about  themselves ;  but  with  the  many  it  is  quite  the 
contrary.  For  they  say.  What  am  I?  A  poor,  miserable 
man,  with  my  wretched  bit  of  flesh.  Wretched,  indeed ;  but 
you  possess  something  better  than  your  bit  of  flesh.  Why 
then  do  you  neglect  that  which  is  better,  and  why  do  you 
attach  yourself  to  this? 

Through  this  kinship  with  the  flesh,  some  of  us  inclining 
to  it  become  like  wolves,  faithless  and  treacherous  and  mis- 
chievous ;  some  become  like  lions,  savage  and  bestial  and  un- 
tamed; but  the  greater  part  of  us  become  foxes,  and  other 
worse  animals.  For  what  else  is  a  slanderer  and  a  malig- 
nant man  than  a  fox,  or  some  other  more  wretched  and 
meaner  animal?  See*  then  and  take  care  that  you  do  not 
become  some  one  of  these  miserable  things. 

NOTES 

•  Epictetus  speaks  of  God  (6  Oeos)  and  the  gods.    Also  conformably 

xo 


DISCOURSES  1 1 

to  the  practice  of  the  people,  he  speaks  of  God  under  the  name  of  Zeus. 
The  gods  of  the  people  were  many,  but  his  God  was  perhaps  one. 
"Father  of  men  and  gods,"  says  Homer  of  Zeus,  and  Virgil  says,  of 
Jupiter,  "Father  of  gods  and  king  of  men."  Salmasius  proposed  ana 
Tov  Qeov. 

**0/oare  Kai  it^odex^^^  MV  ^*  tovtcov  ccico/S'^ts  t&v  arvxv^o.'^^i^- 
Upton  compares  Matthew  xvi.  6;  opars  Kai  itpo6ix'^Te  dito  r^s  ^vf^Viy 
etc.  Upton  remarks  that  many  expressions  in  Epictetus  are  not  unlike 
the  style  of  the  Gospels,  which  were  written  in  the  same  period  in  which 
Epictetus  was  teaching.  Schweighauser  also  refers  to  Wetstein's  New 
Testament. 


CHAPTER  IV 

OF   PROGRESS   OR   IMPROVEMENT 

HE  who  is  making  progress,  having  learned  from  phi- 
losophers that  desire  means  the  desire  of  good 
things,  and  aversion  means  aversion  from  bad 
things ;  having  learned  too  that  happiness  and  tran- 
quillity are  not  attainable  by  man  otherwise  than  by  not  fail- 
ing to  obtain  what  he  desires,  and  not  falling  into  that  which 
he  would  avoid ;  such  a  man  takes  from  himself  desire  alto- 
gether and  defers  it,  and  he  employs  his  aversion  only  on 
things  which  are  dependent  on  his  will.  For  if  he  attempts 
to  avoid  anything  independent  of  his  will,  he  knows  that 
sometimes  he  will  fall  in  with  something  which  he  wishes 
to  avoid,  and  he  will  be  unhappy.  Now  if  virtue  promises 
good  fortune  and  tranquillity  and  happiness,  certainly  also 
the  progress  towards  virtue  is  progress  towards  each  of  these 
things.  For  it  is  always  true  that  to  whatever  point  the  per- 
fecting of  anything  leads  us,  progress  is  an  approach  towards 
this  point. 

How  then  do  we  admit  that  virtue  is  such  as  I  have  said, 
and  yet  seek  progress  in  other  things  and  make  a  display  of 
it?  What  is  the  product  of  virtue?  Tranquillity.  Who 
then  makes  improvement  ?  Is  it  he  who  has  read  many  books 
of  Chrysippus?^  But  does  virtue  consist  in  having  under- 
stood Chrysippus  ?  If  this  is  so,  progress  is  clearly  nothing 
else  than  knowing  a  great  deal  of  Chrysippus.  But  now  we 
admit  that  virtue  produces  one  thing,  and  we  declare  that 
approaching  near  to  it  is  another  thing,  namely,  progress 
or  improvement.  Such  a  person  says  one,  is  already  able  to 
read  Chrysippus  by  himself.  Indeed,  sir,  you  are  making 
great  progress.  What  kind  of  progress  ?  But  why  do  you 
mock  the  man  ?  Why  do  you  draw  him  away  from  the  per- 
ception of  his  own  misfortunes?  Will  you  not  show  him  the 
effect  of  virtue  that  he  may  learn  where  to  look  for  improve- 
ment? Seek  it  there,  wretch,  where  your  work  lies.  And 
where  is  your  work?     In  desire  and  in  aversion,  that  you 


DISCOURSES  13 

may  not  be  disappointed  in  your  desire,  and  that  you  may 
not  fall  into  that  which  you  would  avoid;  in  your  pursuit 
and  avoiding,  that  you  commit  no  error;  in  assent  and  sus- 
pension of  assent,  that  you  be  not  deceived.  The  first 
things,  and  the  most  necessary,  are  those  which  I  have 
named.  But  if  with  trembling  and  lamentation  you  seek  not 
to  fall  into  that  which  you  avoid,  tell  me  how  you  are  im- 
proving. 

Do  you  then  show  me  your  improvement  in  these  things  ? 
If  I  were  talking  to  an  athlete,  I  should  say,  Show  me  your 
shoulders;  and  then  he  might  say,  "Here  are  my  Halteres." 
You  and  your  Halteres^  look  to  that.  I  should  reply,  I 
wish  to  see  the  effect  of  the  Halteres.  So,  when  |^ou  say : 
"Take  the  treatise  on  the  active  powers  (  opuri),  and  see  how 
I  have  studied  it."  I  reply.  Slave,  I  am  not  inquiring  about 
this,  but  how  you  exercise  pursuit  and  avoidance,  desire  and 
aversion,  how  you  design  and  purpose  and  prepare  yourself, 
whether  conformably  to  nature  or  not.  If  conformably, 
give  me  evidence  of  it,  and  I  will  say  that  you  are  making 
progress :  but  if  not  conformably,  be  gone,  and  not  only  ex- 
pound your  books,  but  write  such  books  yourself ;  and  what 
will  you  gain  by  it  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  the  whole  book 
costs  only  five  denarii?  Does  then  the  expounder  seem  to 
be  worth  more  than  five  denarii  ?  Never  then  look  for  the 
matter  itself  in  one  place,  and  progress  towards  it  in  another. 

Where  then  is  progress?  If  any  of  you,  withdrawing 
himself  from  externals,  turns  to  his  own  will  {irpoaipea-i?)  to 
exercise  it  and  to  improve  it  by  labour,  so  as  to  make  it  con- 
formable to  nature,  elevated,  free,  unrestrained,  unimpeded, 
faithful,  modest ;  and  if  he  has  learned  that  he  who  desires 
or  avoids  the  things  which  are  not  in  his  power  can  neither 
be  faithful  nor  free,  but  of  necessity  he  must  change  with 
them  and  be  tossed  about  with  them  as  in  a  tempest,  and  of 
necessity  must  subject  himself  to  others  who  have  the  power 
to  procure  or  prevent  what  he  desires  or  would  avoid ;  finally, 
when  he  rises  in  the  morning,  if  he  observes  and  keeps  these 
rules,  bathes  as  a  man  of  fidelity,  eats  as  a  modest  man ;  in 
like  manner,  if  in  every  matter  that  occurs  he  works  out  his 
chief  principles  (rd icporfyovMeva)  as  the  runner  does  with 


14  EPICTETUS 

reference  to  running,  and  the  trainer  of  the  voice 
with  reference  to  the  voice — this  is  the  man  who 
has  not  travelled  in  vain.  But  if  he  has  strained 
his  efforts  to  the  practice  of  reading  books,  and 
labours  only  at  this,  and  has  travelled  for  this,  I  tell  him  to 
return  home  immediately,  and  not  to  neglect  his  affairs 
there;  for  this  for  which  he  has  travelled  is  nothing.  But 
the  other  thing  is  something, .  to  study  how  a  man  can  rid 
his  life  of  lamentation  and  groaning,  and  saying,  "Woe  to 
me,"  and,  "Wretched  that  I  am,"  and  to  rid  it  also  of  mis- 
fortune and  disappointment,  and  to  learn  what  death  is,  and 
exile,  and  prison,  and  poison,  that  he  may  be  able  to  say 
when  he  is  in  fetters,  "Dear  Crito,  if  it  is  the  will  of  the 
gods  that  it  be  so,  let  it  be  so" ;  and  not  to  say,  "Wretched 
am  I,  an  old  man;  have  I  kept  my  grey  hairs  for  this?" 
Who  is  it  that  speaks  thus  ?  Do  you  think  that  I  shall  name 
some  man  of  no  repute  and  of  low  condition?  Does  not 
Priam  say  this?  Does  not  (Edipus  say  this?  Nay,  all 
kings  say  it  !^  For  what  else  is  tragedy  than  the  perturba- 
tions (ndOTj)  of  men  who  value  externals,  exhibited  in  this 
kind  of  poetry  ?  But  if  a  man  must  learn  by  fiction  that  no 
external  things  which  are  independent  of  the  will  concern 
us,  for  my  part  I  should  like  this  fiction,  by  the  aid  of  which 
I  should  live  happily  and  undisturbed.  But  you  must  con- 
sider for  yourselves  what  you  wish. 

What  then  does  Chrysippus  teach  us?  The  reply  is,  to 
know  that  these  things  are  not  false,  from  which  happiness 
comes  and  tranquillity  arises.  Take  my  books,  and  you  will 
learn  how  true  and  conformable  to  nature  are  the  things 
which  make  me  free  from  perturbations.  O  great  good  for- 
tune !  O  the  great  benefactor  who  points  out  the  way !  To 
Triptolemus  all  men  have  erected  temples  and  altars,  because 
he  gave  us  food  by  cultivation;  but  to  him  who  discovered 
truth  and  brought  it  to  light  and  communicated  it  to  all,  not 
the  truth  which  shows  us  how  to  live,  but  how  to  live  well, 
who  of  you  for  this  reason  has  built  an  altar,  or  a  temple,  or 
has  dedicated  a  statue,  or  who  worships  God  for  this  ?  Be- 
cause the  gods  have  given  the  vine,  or  wheat,  we  sacrifice  to 
them :  but  because  they  jiave  produced  in  the  human  mind 


DISCOURSES  1 5 

that  fruit  by  which  they  designed  to  show  us  the  truth  which 
relates  to  happiness,  shall  we  not  thank  God  for  this? 

NOTES 

*  Diogenes  Laertius  (Chrysippus,  lib.  vii)  states  that  Chrysippus 
wrote  seven  hundred  and  five  books,  or  treatises,  or  whatever  the  word 
crvyypa.jxjj,aTa  means.  He  was  born  at  Soli,  in  Cilicia,  or  at  Tarsus, 
in  B.C.  280,  as  it  is  reckoned,  and  on  going  to  Athens  he  became  a  pupil 
of  the  Stoic  Cleanthes. 

'  Halteres  are  gymnastic  instruments,  literally  "leapers."  They  are 
said  to  have  been  masses  of  lead,  used  for  exercise  and  in  making 
jumps.  The  effect  of  such  weights  in  taking  a  jump  is  well  known  to 
boys  who  have  used  them.  A  couple  of  bricks  will  serve  the  purpose. 
Martial  says  (xiv,  49)  : — 

"Quid  pereunt  stulto  fortes  haltere  lacerti? 
Exercet  melius  vinea  fossa  viros." 

Juvenal    (vi.  421)    writes  of  a  woman  who  uses  dumb-bells  till  she 
sweats,  and  is  then  rubbed  dry  by  a  man, 

"Quum  lassata  gravi  ceciderunt  brachia  massa." 

'  So  kings  and  such  personages  speak  in  the  Greek  tragedies.  Compare 
what  Marcus  Aurelius  (xi.  6)  says  of  Tragedy. 


CHAPTER  V 

AGAINST   THE   ACADEMICS 

IF  a  man,  said  Epictetus,  opposes  evident  truths,  it  is  not 
easy  to  find  arguments  by  which  we  shall  make  him 
change  his  opinion.     But  this  does  not  arise  either  from 
the  man's  strength  or  the  teacher's  weakness ;  for  when 
the  man,  though  he  has  been  confuted,  is  hardened  like  a 
stone,  how  shall  we  then  be  able  to  deal  with  him  by  argu- 
ment? 

Now  there  are  two  kinds  of  hardening,  one  of  the  under- 
standing, the  other  of  the  sense  of  shame,  when  a  man  is 
resolved  not  to  assent  to  what  is  manifest  nor  to  desist  from 
contradictions.  Most  of  us  are  afraid  of  mortification  of 
the  body,  and  would  contrive  all  means  to  avoid  such  a  thing, 
but  we  care  not  about  the  soul's  mortification.  And  indeed 
with  regard  to  the  soul,  if  a  man  be  in  such  a  state  as  not  to 
apprehend  anything,  or  understand  at  all,  we  think  that  he  is 
in  a  bad  condition :  but  if  the  sense  of  shame  and  modesty 
are  deadened,  this  we  call  even  power  (or  strength). 

Do  you  comprehend  that  you  are  awake?  "I  do  not,"  the 
man  replies,  "for  I  do  not  even  comprehend  when  in  my 
sleep  I  imagine  that  I  am  awake."  Does  this  appearance 
then  not  differ  from  the  other?  "Not  at  all,"  he  replies. 
Shall  I  still  argue  with  this  man?  And  what  fire  or  what 
iron  shall  I  apply  to  him  to  make  him  feel  that  he  is  dead- 
ened? He  does  perceive,  but  he  pretends  that  he  does  not. 
He  is  even  worse  than  a  dead  man.  He  does  not  see  the 
contradiction :  he  is  in  a  bad  condition.  Another  does  see  it, 
but  he  is  not  moved,  and  makes  no  improvement :  he  is  even 
in  a  worse  condition.  His  modesty  is  extirpated,  and  his 
sense  of  shame;  and  the  rational  faculty  has  not  been  cut 
oflf  from  him,  but  it  is  brutalised.  Shall  I  name  this  strength 
of  mind  ?  Certainly  not,  unless  we  also  name  it  such  in  cat- 
amites, through  which  they  do  and  say  in  public  whatever 
comes  into  their  head. 


i6 


CHAPTER  VI 

OF  PROVIDENCE 

FROM  everything  which  is  or  happens  in  the  world,  it 
is  easy  to  praise  Providence,  if  a  man  possesses  these 
two  qualities,  the  faculty  of  seeing  what  belongs  and 
happens  to  all  persons  and  things,  and  a  grateful  dis- 
position. If  he  does  not  possess  these  two  qualities,  one 
man  will  not  see  the  use  of  things  which  are  and  which  hap- 
pen :  another  will  not  be  thankful  for  them,  even  if  he  does 
know  them.  If  Grod  had  made  colours,  but  had  not  made 
the  faculty  of  seeing  them,  what  would  have  been  their  use  ? 
None  at  all.  On  the  other  hand,  if  He  had  made  the  faculty 
of  vision,  but  had  not  made  objects  such  as  to  fall  under  the 
faculty,  what  in  that  case  also  would  have  been  the  use  of 
it  ?  None  at  all.  Well,  suppose  that  He  had  made  both,  but 
had  not  made  light?  In  that  case,  also,  they  would  have 
been  of  no  use.  Who  is  it  then  who  has  fitted  this  to  that 
and  that  to  this  ?  And  who  is  it  that  has  fitted  the  knife  to 
the  case  and  the  case  to  the  knife  ?  Is  it  no  one?^  And,  in- 
deed, from  the  very  structure  of  things  which  have  attained 
their  completion,  we  are  accustomed  to  show  that  the  work 
is  certainly  the  act  of  some  artificer,  and  that  it  has  not  been 
constructed  without  a  purpose.  Does  then  each  of  these 
things  demonstrate  the  workman,  and  do  not  visible  things 
and  the  faculty  of  seeing  and  light  demonstrate  Him  ?  And 
the  existence  of  male  and  female,  and  the  desire  of  each  for 
conjunction,  and  the  power  of  using  the  parts  which  are  con- 
structed, do  not  even  these  declare  the  workman?  If  they 
do  not,  let  us  consider  the  constitution  of  our  understanding 
according  to  which,  when  we  meet  with  sensible  objects, 
we  do  not  simply  receive  impressions  from  them,  but  we  also 
select  something  from  them,  and  subtract  something,  and 
add,  compound  by  means  of  them  these  things  or  those,  and, 
in  fact,  pass  from  some  to  other  things  which,  in  a  manner, 
resemble  them :  is  not  even  this  sufficient  to  move  some  men, 
and  to  induce  them  not  to  forget  the  workman  ?  If  not  so, 
i  17 


1 8  EPICTETUS 

let  them  explain  to  us  what  it  is  that  makes  each  several 
thing,  or  how  it  is  possible  that  things  so  wonderful  and  like 
the  contrivances  of  art  should  exist  by  chance  and  from  their 
own  proper  motion  ? 

What,  then,  are  these  things  done  in  us  only?  Many, 
indeed,  in  us  only,  of  which  the  rational  animal  had  pecu- 
liarly need ;  but  you  will  find  many  common  to  us  with  irra- 
tional animals.  Do  they  then  understand  what  is  done  ?  By 
no  means.  For  use  is  one  thing,  and  understanding  is  an- 
other. God  had  need  of  irrational  animals  to  make  use  of 
appearances,  but  of  us  to  understand  the  use  of  appearances. 
It  is  therefore  enough  for  them  to  eat  and  drink,  and  to  sleep 
and  to  copulate,  and  to  do  all  the  other  things  which  they 
severally  do.  But  for  us,  to  whom  He  has  given  also  the 
intellectual  faculty,  these  things  are  not  sufficient ;  for  unless 
we  act  in  a  proper  and  orderly  manner,  and  conformably  to 
the  nature  and  constitution  of  each  thing,  we  shall  never  at- 
tain our  true  end.  For  where  the  constitutions  of  living  be- 
ings are  different,  there  also  the  acts  and  the  ends  are  differ- 
ent. In  those  animals  then  whose  constitution  is  adapted 
only  to  use,  use  alone  is  enough:  but  in  an  animal  (man), 
which  has  also  the  power  of  understanding  the  use,  unless 
there  be  the  due  exercise  of  the  understanding,  he  will  never 
attain  his  proper  end.  Well  then  God  constitutes  every  ani- 
mal, one  to  be  eaten,  another  to  serve  for  agriculture,  an- 
other to  supply  cheese,  and  another  for  some  like  use;  for 
which  purposes  what  need  is  there  to  understand  appear- 
ances and  to  be  able  to  distinguish  them?  But  God  has 
introduced  man  to  be  a  spectator  of  God  and  of  His  works ; 
and  not  only  a  spectator  of  them,  but  an  interpreter.  For 
this  reason  it  is  shameful  for  man  to  begin  and  to  end  where 
irrational  animals  do;  but  rather  he  ought  to  begin  where 
they  begin,  and  to  end  where  nature  ends  in  us ;  and  nature 
ends  in  contemplation  and  understanding,  and  in  a  way  of 
life  conformable  to  nature.  Take  care  then  not  to  die  with- 
out having  been  spectators  of  these  things. 

But  you  take  a  journey  to  Olympia  to  see  the  work  of 
Phidias,^  and  all  of  you  think  it  a  misfortune  to  die  without 
having  seen  such  things.  But  when  there  is  no  need  to  take 
a  journey,  and  where  a  man  is,  there  he  has  the  works  (of 


DISCOURSES  19 

God)  before  him,  will  you  not  desire  to  see  and  understand 
them  ?  Will  you  not  perceive  either  what  you  are,  or  what 
you  were  born  for,  or  what  this  is  for  which  you  have  re- 
ceived the  faculty  of  sight?  But  you  may  say,  there  are 
some  things  disagreeable  and  troublesome  in  life.  And  are 
there  none  at  Olympia?  Are  you  not  scorched?  Are  you 
not  pressed  by  a  crowd  ?  Are  you  not  without  comfortable 
means  of  bathing  ?  Are  you  not  wet  when  it  rains  ?  Have 
you  not  abundance  of  noise,  clamour,  and  other  disagreeable 
things?  But  I  suppose  that  setting  all  these  things  off 
against  the  magnificence  of  the  spectacle,  you  bear  and  en- 
dure. Well  then  and  have  you  not  received  faculties  by 
which  you  will  be  able  to  bear  all  that  happens  ?  Have  you 
not  received  greatness  of  soul?  Have  you  not  received 
manliness?  Have  you  not  received  endurance?  And  why 
do  I  trouble  myself  about  anything  that  can  happen  if  I  pos- 
sess greatness  of  soul  ?  What  shall  distract  my  mind  or  dis- 
turb me,  or  appear  painful?  Shall  I  not  use  the  power  for 
the  purposes  which  I  received  it,  and  shall  I  grieve  and  la- 
ment over  what  happens? 

Yes,  but  my  nose  runs.  For  what  purpose  then,  slave, 
have  you  hands  ?  Is  it  not  that  you  may  wipe  your  nose  ? — 
Is  it  then  consistent  with  reason  that  there  should  be  run- 
ning of  noses  in  the  world? — Nay,  how  much  better  it  is 
to  wipe  your  nose  than  to  find  fault.  What  do  you  think 
Hercules  would  have  been  if  there  had  not  been  such  a  lion, 
and  hydra,  and  stag,  and  boar,  and  certain  unjust  and  bes- 
tial men,  whom  Hercules  used  to  drive  away  and  clear  out? 
And  what  would  he  have  been  doing  if  there  had  been  noth- 
ing of  the  kind  ?  Is  it  not  plain  that  he  would  have  wrapped 
himself  up  and  have  slept  ?  In  the  first  place  then  he  would 
not  have  been  a  Hercules,  when  he  was  dreaming  away  all 
his  life  in  such  luxury  and  ease;  and  even  if  he  had  been 
one,  what  would  have  been  the  use  of  him  ?  and  what  the  use 
of  his  arms,  and  of  the  strength  of  the  other  parts  of  his 
body,  and  his  endurance  and  noble  spirit,  if  such  circum- 
stances and  occasions  had  not  roused  and  exercised  him? 
Well  then  must  a  man  provide  for  himself  such  means  of  ex- 
ercise, and  seek  to  introduce  a  lion  from  some  place  into  his 
country,  and  a  boar,  and  a  hydra  ?     This  would  be  folly  and 


20  EPICTETUS 

madness:  but  as  they  did  not  exist,  and  were  found,  they 
were  useful  for  showing  what  Hercules  was  and  for  exer- 
cising him.  Come  then  do  you  also  having  observed  these 
things  look  to  the  faculties  which  you  have,  and  when  you 
have  looked  at  them,  say :  Bring  now,  O  Zeus,  any  difficulty 
that  thou  pleasest,  for  I  have  means  given  to  me  by  thee  and 
powers'  for  honouring  myself  through  the  things  which  hap- 
pen. You  do  not  so :  but  you  sit  still,  trembling  for  fear 
that  some  things  will  happen,  and  weeping,  and  lamenting, 
and  groaning  for  what  does  happen :  and  then  you  blame 
the  gods.  For  what  is  the  consequence  of  such  meanness 
of  spirit  but  impiety?  And  yet  God  has  not  only  given  us 
these  faculties ;  by  which  we  shall  be  able  to  bear  everything 
that  happens  without  being  depressed  or  broken  by  it;  but, 
like  a  good  king  and  a  true  father.  He  has  given  us  these 
faculties  free  from  hindrance,  subject  to  no  compulsion,  un- 
impeded, and  has  put  them  entirely  in  our  own  power,  with- 
out even  having  reserved  to  Himself  any  power  of  hindering 
or  impeding.  You,  who  have  received  these  powers  free 
and  as  your  own,  use  them  not :  you  do  not  even  see  what  you 
have  received,  and  from  whom ;  some  of  you  being  blinded 
to  the  giver,  and  not  even  acknowledging  your  benefactor, 
and  others,  through  meanness  of  spirit,  betaking  yourselves 
to  fault-finding  and  making  charges  against  God.  Yet  I 
will  show  to  you  that  you  have  powers  and  means  for  great- 
ness of  soul  and  manliness:  but  what  powers  you  have  for 
finding  fault  and  making  accusations,  do  you  show  me. 

NOTES 

*  Goethe  has  a  short  poem,  entitled  "Gleich  und  Gleich"  (Like  and 
Like)  : 

"  Ein   Blumenglockchen 
Vom  Boden  hervor 
War  friih  gesprosset 
In  lieblichem   Flor; 
Da  kam  ein  Bienchen 
Und  naschte  fein  : — 
Die  miissen  wohl  beyde 
Fur  einander  seyn." 

'  This  work  was  the  colossal  chryselephantine  statue  of  Zeus  (Jupiter) 
by  Phidias,  which  was  at  Olympia. 

'Antoninus  (ix.  i).  Epictetus  says  that  the  powers  which  man  has 
were  given  by  God :  Antoninus  says,  from  nature.  They  mean  the  same 
thing.    See  Schweighauser's  note. 


CHAPTER  VII 

OF    THE    USE    OF    SOPHISTICAL,    HYPOTHETICAL,    AND    LIKE 

ARGUMENTS 

THE  handling  of  sophistical  and  hypothetical  argu- 
ments, and  of  those  which  derive  their  conclusions 
from  questioning,  and  in  a  word  the  handling  of 
all  such  arguments,  relates  to  the  duties  of  life, 
though  the  many  do  not  know  this  truth.  For  in  every 
matter  we  inquire  how  the  wise  and  good  man  shall  discover 
the  proper  path  and  the  proper  method  of  dealing  with  it. 
Let  then  people  either  say  that  the  grave  man  will  not  de- 
scend into  the  contest  of  question  and  answer,  or,  that  if  he 
does  descend  into  the  contest,  he  will  take  no  care  about  not 
conducting  himself  rashly  or  carelessly  in  questioning  and 
answering.  But  if  they  do  not  allow  either  the  one  or  the 
other  of  these  things,  they  must  admit  that  some  inquiry 
ought  to  be  made  into  those  topics  {TOJtGJv)  on  which  question- 
ing and  answering  are  particularly  employed.  For  what 
is  the  end  proposed  in  reasoning?  To  establish  true  propo- 
sitions, to  remove  the  false,  to  withhold  assent  from  those 
which  are  not  plain.  Is  it  enough  then  to  have  learned  only 
this?  It  is  enough,  a  man  may  reply.  Is  it  then  also 
enough  for  a  man,  who  would  not  make  a  mistake  in  the 
use  of  coined  money,  to  have  heard  this  precept,  that  he 
should  receive  the  genuine  drachmae  and  reject  the  spuri- 
ous? It  is  not  enough.  What  then  ought  to  be  added  to 
this  precept?  What  else  than  the  faculty  which  proves  and 
distinguishes  the  genuine  and  the  spurious  drachmae?  Con- 
sequently also  in  reasoning  what  has  been  said  is  it  not 
enough ;  but  is  it  necessary  that  a  man  should  acquire  the 
faculty  of  examining  and  distinguishing  the  true  and  the 
false,  and  that  which  is  not  plain?  It  is  necessary.  Be- 
sides this,  what  is  proposed  in  reasoning?  That  you  should 
accept  what  follows  from  that  which  you  have  properly 
granted.  Well,  is  it  then  enough  in  this  case  also  to  know 
this  ?     It  is  not  enough ;  but  a  man  must  learn  how  one  thing 

21 


22  EPICTETUS 

is  a  consequence  of  other  things,  and  when  one  thing  follows 
from  one  thing,  and  when  it  follows  from  several  collect- 
ively. Consider  then  if  it  be  not  necessary  that  this  power 
should  also  be  acquired  by  him  who  purposes  to  conduct 
himself  skilfully  in  reasoning,  the  power  of  demonstrating 
himself  the  several  things  which  he  has  proposed,  and  the 
power  of  understanding  the  demonstrations  of  others,  and  of 
not  being  deceived  by  sophists,  as  if  they  were  demonstra- 
ting. Therefore  there  has  arisen  among  us  the  practice  and 
exercise  of  conclusive  arguments  and  figures,  and  it  has  been 
shown  to  be  necessary. 

But  in  fact  in  some  cases  we  have  properly  granted  the 
premises  or  assumptions,  and  there  results  from  them  some- 
thing ;  and  though  it  is  not  true,  yet  none  the  less  it  does  re- 
sult. What  then  ought  I  to  do?  Ought  I  to  admit  the 
falsehood  ?  And  how  is  that  possible  ?  Well,  should  I  say 
that  I  did  not  properly  grant  that  which  we  agreed  upon? 
But  you  are  not  allowed  to  do  even  this.  Shall  I  then  say 
that  the  consequence  does  not  arise  through  what  has  been 
conceded?  But  neither  is  this  allowed.  What  then  must 
be  done  in  this  case  ?  Consider  if  it  is  not  this :  as  to  have 
borrowed  is  not  enough  to  make  a  man  still  a  debtor,  but  to 
this  must  be  added  the  fact  that  he  continues  to  owe  the 
money  and  that  the  debt  is  not  paid,  so  it  is  not  enough  to 
compel  you  to  admit  the  inference  that  you  have  granted  the 
premises  (rd:  Xrjutiard),  but  you  must  abide  by  what  you  have 
granted.  Indeed,  if  the  premises  continue  to  the  end  such  as 
they  were  when  they  were  granted,  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
for  us  to  abide  by  what  we  have  granted,  and  we  must  ac- 
cept their  consequences :  but  if  the  premises  do  not  remain 
such  as  they  were  when  they  were  granted,  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  us  also  to  withdraw  from  what  we  granted, 
and  from  accepting  what  does  not  follow  from  the  words  in 
which  our  concessions  were  made.  For  the  inference  is  now 
not  our  inference,  nor  does  it  result  with  our  assent,  since 
we  have  withdrawn  from  the  premises  which  we  granted. 
We  ought  then  both  to  examine  such  kinds  of  premises,  and 
such  change  and  variation  of  them  (from  one  meaning  to 
another) ,  by  which  in  the  course  of  questioning  or  answer- 
ing, or  in  making  the  syllogistic  conclusion,  or  in  any  other 


DISCOURSES  23 

such  way,  the  premises  tindergo  variations,  and  give  occasion 
to  the  fooHsh  to  be  confounded,  if  they  do  not  see  what  con- 
clusions (consequences)  are.  For  what  reason  ought  we  to 
examine?  In  order  that  we  may  not  in  this  matter  be  em- 
ployed in  an  improper  manner  nor  in  a  confused  way. 

And  the  same  in  hypotheses  and  hypothetical  arguments ; 
for  it  is  necessary  sometimes  to  demand  the  granting  of 
some  hypothesis  as  a  kind  of  passage  to  the  argument  which 
follows.  Must  we  then  allow  every  hypothesis  that  is  pro- 
posed, or  not  allow  every  one  ?  And  if  not  every  one,  which 
should  we  allow  ?  And  if  a  man  has  allowed  an  hypothesis, 
must  he  in  every  case  abide  by  allowing  it?  or  must  he 
sometimes  withdraw  from  it,  but  admit  the  consequences  and 
not  admit  contradictions?  Yes;  but  suppose  that  a  man 
says,  "If  you  admit  the  hypothesis  of  a  possibility,  I  will 
draw  you  an  impossibility."  With  such  a  person 
shall  a  man  of  sense  refuse  to  enter  into  a  con- 
test, and  avoid  discussion  and  conversation  with  him? 
But  what  other  man  than  the  man  of  sense  can 
use  argumentation  and  is  skilful  in  questioning  and 
answering,  and  incapable  of  being  cheated  and  deceived 
by  false  reasoning  ?  And  shall  he  enter  into  the  contest,  and 
yet  not  take  care  whether  he  shall  engage  in  argument  not 
rashly  and  not  carelessly?  And  if  he  does  not  take  care,  how 
can  he  be  such  a  man  as  we  conceive  him  to  be  ?  But  without 
some  such  exercise  and  preparation,  can  he  maintain  a  contin- 
uous and  consistent  argument  ?  Let  them  show  this ;  and  all 
these  speculations  (^eooptifiara)  become  superfluous,  and  are  ab- 
surd and  inconsistent  with  our  notion  of  a  good  and  serious 
man. 

Why  are  we  still  indolent  and  negligent  and  sluggish,  and 
why  do  we  seek  pretences  for  not  labouring  and  not  being 
watchful  in  cultivating  our  reason?  If  then  I  shall  make  a 
mistake  in  these  matters  may  I  not  have  killed  my  father?. 
Slave,  where  was  there  a  father  in  this  matter  that  you  could 
kill  him  ?  What  then  have  you  done  ?  The  only  fault  that 
was  possible  here  is  the  fault  which  you  have  committed. 
This  is  the  very  remark  which  I  made  to  Rufus*  when  he 
blamed  me  for  not  having  discovered  the  one  thing  omitted 
in  a  certain  syllogism :  I  suppose,  I  said,  that  I  have  burnt 


24  EPICTETUS 

the  Capitol.  "Slave,"  he  replied,  "was  the  thing  omitted  here 
the  Capitol  ?  Or  are  these  the  only  crimes,  to  burn  the  Cap- 
itol and  to  kill  your  father?"  But  for  a  man  to  use  the  ap- 
pearances presented  to  him  rashly  and  foolishly  and  care- 
lessly, and  not  to  understand  argument,  nor  demonstration, 
nor  sophism,  nor,  in  a  word,  to  see  in  questioning  and  an- 
swering what  is  consistent  with  that  which  we  have  granted 
or  is  not  consistent ;  is  there  no  error  in  this  ? 


*  Rufus  is  Musonius  Rufus  (i.  i).  To  kill  a  father  and  to  burn  the 
Roman  Capitol  are  mentioned  as  instances  of  the  greatest  crimes.  Comp. 
Horace,   Epode,  iii;  Cicero,  De  Amicit.  ii;  Plutarch,  Tib.  Gracchus, 

C  20. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THAT  THE  FACULTIES  ARE  NOT  SAFE  TO  THE  UNINSTRUCTED 

IN  as  many  ways  as  we  can  change  things  which  are 
equivalent  to  one  another,  in  just  so  many  ways  we 
can  change  the  forms  of  arguments  {tTtixEiprjMcera)  and 
enthymemes  {iv6vjuT^/iara\  in  argumentation.  This  is 
an  instance :  if  you  have  borrowed  and  not  repaid,  you  owe 
me  the  money :  you  have  not  borrowed  and  you  have  not  re- 
paid ;  then  you  do  not  owe  me  the  money.  To  do  this  skil- 
fully is  suitable  to  no  man  more  than  to  the  philosopher ;  for 
if  the  enthymeme  is  an  imperfect  syllogism,  it  is  plain  that 
he  who  has  been  exercised  in  the  perfect  syllogism  must  be 
equally  expert  in  the  imperfect  also. 

Why  then  do  we  not  exercise  ourselves  and  one  another 
in  this  manner  ?  Because,  I  reply,  at  present,  though  we  are 
not  exercised  in  these  things  and  not  distracted  from  the 
study  of  morality,  by  me  at  least,  still  we  make  no  progress 
in  virtue.  What  then  must  we  expect  if  we  should  add  this 
occupation?  and  particularly  as  this  would  not  only  be  an 
occupation  which  would  withdraw  us  from  more  necessary 
things,  but  would  also  be  a  cause  of  self-conceit  and  arro- 
gance, and  no  small  cause.  For  great  is  the  power  of  argu- 
ing and  the  faculty  of  persuasion,  and  particularly  if  it 
should  be  much  exercised,  and  also  receive  additional  orna- 
ment from  language:  and  so  universally,  every  faculty  ac- 
quired by  the  uninstructed  and  weak  brings  with  it  the  dan- 
ger of  these  persons  being  elated  and  inflated  by  it.  For  by 
what  means  could  one  persuade  a  young  man  who  excels  in 
these  matters,  that  he  ought  not  to  become  an  appendage^ 
to  them,  but  to  make  them  an  appendage  to  himself  ?  Does 
he  not  trample  on  all  such  reasons,  and  strut  before  us  elated 
and  inflated,  not  enduring  that  any  man  should  reprove  him 
and  remind  him  of  what  he  has  neglected  and  to  what  he 
has  turned  aside? 

What  then  was  not  Plato  a  philosopher?*  I  reply,  and 
was  not  Hippocrates  a  physician?  but  you  see  how  Hippo- 

25 


26  EPICTETUS 

crates  speaks.  Does  Hippocrates  then  speaK  thus  in  respect 
of  being  a  physician?  Why  do  you  mingle  things  which 
have  been  accidentally  united  in  the  same  men?  And  if 
Plato  was  handsome  and  strong,  ought  I  also  to  set  to  work 
and  endeavour  to  become  handsome  or  strong,  as  if  this  was 
necessary  for  philosophy,  because  a  certain  philosopher  was 
at  the  same  time  handsome  and  a  philosopher?  Will  you 
not  choose  to  see  and  to  distinguish  in  respect  to  what  men 
become  philosophers,  and  what  things  belong  to  them  in 
other  respects?  And  if  I  were  a  philosopher,  ought  you 
also  to  be  made  lame  ?'  What  then  ?  Do  I  take  away  these 
faculties  which  you  possess?  By  no  means;  for  neither  do 
I  take  away  the  faculty  of  seeing.  But  if  you  ask  me  what 
is  the  good  of  man,  I  can  not  mention  to  you  anything  else 
than  that  it  is  a  certain  disposition  of  the  will  with  respect 
to  appearances. 

NOTES 

*  A  man,  as  Wolf  explains  it,  should  not  make  oratory,  or  the  art  of 
speaking,  his  chief  excellence.  He  should  use  it  to  set  off  something 
which  is  superior. 

*  Plato  was  eloquent,  and  the  adversary  asks,  if  that  is  a  reason  for 
not  allowing  him  to  be  a  philosopher.  To  which  the  rejoinder  is  that 
Hippocrates  was  a  physician,  and  eloquent  too,  but  not  as  a  physician. 

'  Epictetus  was  lame. 


CHAPTER  IX 

HOW  FROM  THE  FACT  THAT  WE  ARE  AKIN  TO  GOD  A  MAN 
MAY  PROCEED  TO  THE  CONSEQUENCES 

IF  the  things  are  true  which  are  said  by  the  philosophers 
about  the  kinship  between  Grod  and  man,  what  else  re- 
mains for  men  to  do  than  what  Socrates  did?  Never 
in  reply  to  the  question,  to  what  country  you  belong, 
say  that  you  are  an  Athenian  or  a  Corinthian,  but  that  you 
are  a  citizen  of  the  world  {Koafiioi).  For  why  do  you  say 
that  you  are  an  Athenian,  and  why  do  you  not  say  that 
you  belong  to  the  small  nook  only  into  which  your  poor  body 
was  cast  at  birth?  Is  it  not  plain  that  you  call  yourself  an 
Athenian  or  a  Corinthian  from  the  place  which  has  a  greater 
authority  and  comprises  not  only  that  small  nook  itself  and 
all  your  family,  but  even  the  whole  country  from  which  the 
stock  of  your  progenitors  is  derived  down  to  you?  He  then 
who  has  observed  with  intelligence  the  administration  of 
the  world,  and  has  learned  that  the  greatest  and  supreme  and 
the  most  comprehensive  community  is  that  which  is  com- 
posed of  men  and  God,  and  that  from  God  have  descended 
the  seeds  not  only  to  my  father  and  grandfather,  but  to  all  be- 
ings which  are  generated  on  the  earth  and  are  produced,  and 
particularly  to  rational  beings — for  these  only  are  by  their 
nature  formed  to  have  communion  with  God,  being  by  means 
of  reason  conjoined  with  him — why  should  not  such  a  man 
call  himself  a  citizen  of  the  world,  why  not  a  son  of  God,* 
and  why  should  he  be  afraid  of  anything  which  happens 
among  men?  Is  kinship  with  Caesar  (the  emperor)  or  with 
any  other  of  the  powerful  in  Rome  sufficient  to  enable  us 
to  live  in  safety,  and  above  contempt,  and  without  any  fear  at 
all  ?  and  to  have  God  for  your  maker  (flroi77r7?v),  and  father  and 
guardian,  shall  not  this  release  us  from  sorrows  and  fears? 

But  a  man  may  say,  "Whence  shall  I  get  bread  to  eat  when 
I  have  nothing?" 

And  how  do  slaves,  and  runaways — on  what  do  they  rely 
when  they  leave  their  masters  ?     Do  they  rely  on  their  lands 

27 


28  EPICTETUS 

or  slaves,  or  their  vessels  of  silver  ?  They  rely  on  nothing 
but  themselves;  and  food  does  not  fail  them.^  And  shall  it 
be  necessary  for  one  among  us  who  is  a  philosopher  to  travel 
into  foreign  parts,  and  trust  to  and  rely  on  others,  and  not 
to  take  care  of  himself ;  and  shall  he  be  inferior  to  irrational 
animals  and  more  cowardly,  each  of  which  being  self-suffi- 
cient, neither  fails  to  get  its  proper  food,  nor  to  find  a  suit- 
able way  of  living,  and  one  conformable  to  nature? 

I  indeed  think  that  the  old  man'  ought  to  be  sitting  here, 
not  to  contrive  how  you  may  have  no  mean  thoughts  nor 
mean  and  ignoble  talk  about  yourselves,  but  to  take  care  that 
there  be  not  among  us  any  young  men  of  such  a  mind,  that 
when  they  have  recognised  their  kinship  to  God,  and  that  we 
are  fettered  by  these  bonds — the  body,  I  mean,  and  its  po- 
sessions,  and  whatever  else  on  account  of  them  is  necessary 
to  us  for  the  economy  and  commerce  of  life — they  should  in- 
tend to  throw  off  these  things  as  if  they  were  burdens  pain- 
ful and  intolerable,  and  to  depart  to  their  kinsmen.  But  this 
is  the  labour  that  your  teacher  and  instructor  ought  to  be 
employed  upon,  if  he  really  were  what  he  should  be.  You 
should  come  to  him  and  say,  "Epictetus,  we  can  no  longer 
endure  being  bound  to  this  poor  body,  and  feeding  it,  and 
giving  it  drink,  and  rest,  and  cleaning  it,  and  for  the  sake  of 
the  body  complying  with  the  wishes  of  these  and  of  those.* 
Are  not  these  things  indifferent  and  nothing  to  us;  and  is 
not  death  no  evil  ?  And  are  we  not  in  a  manner  kinsmen  of 
God,  and  did  we  not  come  from  him  ?  Allow  us  to  depart 
to  the  place  from  which  we  came;  allow  us  to  be  released  at 
last  from  these  bonds  by  which  we  are  bound  and  weighed 
down.  Here  there  are  robbers  and  thieves  and  courts  of 
justice,  and  those  who  are  named  tyrants,  and  think  that  they 
have  some  power  over  us  by  means  of  the  body  and  its  pos- 
sessions. Permit  us  to  show  them  that  they  have  no  power 
over  any  man."  And  I  on  my  part  would  say,  "Friends, 
wait  for  God :  when  He  shall  give  the  signal  and  release  you 
from  this  service,  then  go  to  Him ;  but  for  the  present  endure 
to  dwell  in  this  place  where  He  has  put  you :  short  indeed 
is  this  time  of  our  dwelling  here,  and  easy  to  bear  for  those 
who  are  so  disposed :  for  what  tyrant  or  what  thief,  or  what 
courts  of  justice,  are  formidable  to  those  who  have  thus  con- 


DISCOURSES  29 

sidered  as  things  of  no  value  the  body  and  the  possessions  of 
the  body  ?     Wait  then,  do  not  depart  without  a  reason." 

Something  like  this  ought  to  be  said  by  the  teacher  to 
ingenuous  youths.  But  now  what  happens?  The  teacher 
is  a  lifeless  body,  and  you  are  lifeless  bodies.  When  you 
have  been  well  filled  to-day,  you  sit  down  and  lament  about 
the  morrow,  how  you  shall  get  something  to  eat.  Wretch, 
if  you  have  it,  you  will  have  it ;  if  you  have  it  not,  you  will 
depart  from  life.  The  door  is  open. '^  Why  do  you  grieve? 
where  does  there  remain  any  room  for  tears?  and  where  is 
there  occasion  for  flattery  ?  why  shall  one  man  envy  another  ? 
why  should  a  man  admire  the  rich  or  the  powerful,  even  if 
they  be  both  very  strong  and  of  violent  temper?  for  what 
will  they  do  to  us?  We  shall  not  care  for  that  which  they 
can  do ;  and  what  we  do  care  for,  that  they  can  not  do.  How 
did  Socrates  behave  with  respect  to  these  matters  ?  Why,  in 
what  other  way  than  a  man  ought  to  do  who  was  convinced 
that  he  was  a  kinsman  of  the  gods?  "If  you  say  to  me 
now,"  said  Socrates  to  his  judges,'  "we  will  acquit  you  on 
the  condition  that  you  no  longer  discourse  in  the  way  in 
which  you  have  hitherto  discoursed,  nor  trouble  either  our 
young  or  our  old  men,  I  shall  answer,  you  make  yourselves 
ridiculous  by  thinking  that,  if  one  of  our  commanders  has 
appointed  me  to  a  certain  post,  it  is  my  duty  to  keep  and 
maintain  it,  and  to  resolve  to  die  a  thousand  times  rather 
than  desert  it ;  but  if  God  has  put  us  in  any  place  and  way  of 
life,  we  ought  to  desert  it."  Socrates  speaks  like  a  man 
who  is  really  a  kinsman  of  the  gods.  But  we  think  about 
ourselves,  as  if  we  were  only  stomachs,  and  intestines,  and 
shameful  parts;  we  fear,  we  desire;  we  flatter  those  who 
are  able  to  help  us  in  these  matters,  and  we  fear  them  also. 

A  man  asked  me  to  write  to  Rome  about  him,  a  man  who, 
as  most  people  thought,  had  been  unfortunate,  for  formerly 
he  was  a  man  of  rank  and  rich,  but  had  been  stripped  of  all, 
and  was  living  here.  I  wrote  on  his  behalf  in  a  submissive 
manner;  but  when  he  had  read  the  letter,  he  gave  it  back 
to  me  and  said,  "I  wished  for  your  help,  not  your  pity:  no 
evil  has  happened  to  me." 

Thus  also  Musonius  Rufus,  in  order  to  try  me,  used  to 
say:     This  and  this  will  befall  you  from  your  master;  and 


30  EPICTETUS 

when  I  replied  that  these  were  things  which  happen  In  the  or- 
dinary course  of  human  affairs.  Why  then,  said  he,  should  I 
ask  him  anything  when  I  can  obtain  it  from  you?  For,  in 
fact,  what  a  man  has  from  himself,  it  is  superfluous  and  fool- 
ish to  receive  from  another?  Shall  I  then,  who  am  able 
to  receive  from  myself  greatness  of  soul  and  a  generous 
spirit,  receive  from  you  land  and  money  or  a  magisterial 
office  ?  I  hope  not :  I  will  not  be  so  ignorant  about  my  own 
possessions.  But  when  a  man  is  cowardly  and  mean,  what 
else  must  be  done  for  him  than  to  write  letters  as  you  would 
about  a  corpse.  Please  to  grant  us  the  body  of  a  certain  per- 
son and  a  sextarius  of  pure  blood.  For  such  a  person  is,  in 
fact,  a  carcase  and  a  sextarius  (a  certain  quantity)  of  blood 
and  nothing  more.  But  if  he  were  anything  more,  he  would 
know  that  one  man  is  not  miserable  through  the  means  of 
another. 

NOTES 

^  So  Jesus  said,  "Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven."  Cleanthes,  in  his 
hymn  to  Zeus,  writes,  iK  arov  yap  yivoi;  ecrfisv.  Compare  Acts  of 
the  Apostles,  xvii.  28,  where  Paul  quotes  these  words.  It  is  not  true 
then  that  the  "conception  of  a  parental  deity,"  as  it  has  been  asserted, 
was  unknown  before  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  and,  after  the  time  of 
Jesus,  unknown  to  those  Greeks  who  were  unacquainted  with  His  teach- 
ing. 

'  In  our  present  society  there  are  thousands  who  rise  in  the  morning 
and  know  not  how  they  shall  find  something  to  eat.  Some  find  their 
food  by  fraud  and  theft,  some  receive  it  as  a  gift  from  others,  and  some 
look  out  for  any  work  that  they  can  find  and  get  their  pittance  by 
honest  labour.  You  may  see  such  men  everywhere,  if  you  will  keep 
your  eyes  open.  Such  men,  who  live  by  daily  labour,  live  an  heroic  life, 
which  puts  to  shame  the  well-fed  philosopher  and  the  wealthy  Christian. 

Epictetus  has  made  a  great  misstatement  about  irrational  animals. 
Millions  die  annually  for  want  of  sufficient  food ;  and  many  human 
beings  perish  in  the  same  way.  We  can  hardly  suppose  that  he  did 
not  know  these  facts. 

Compare  the  passage  in  Matthew  vi.  25-34.  It  is  said,  v.  26:  "Be- 
hold the  fowls  of  the  air:  for  they  sow  not,  neither  do  they  reap,  nor 
gather  into  bams;  yet  your  heavenly  Father  feedeth  them.  Are  ye  not 
much  better  than  they?"  The  expositors  of  this  passage  may  be  con- 
sulted. 

*  The  old  man  is  Epictetus. 

*  He  means,  as  Wolf  says,  "on  account  of  the  necessities  of  the  body 
seeking  the  favour  of  the  more  powerful  by  disagreeable  compliances.'' 

'  Compare  Matthew  vi.  31 :  "Therefore  take  no  thought,  saying,  What 
shall  we  eat?  or,  What  shall  we  drink?  or.  Wherewithal  shall  we  be 
clothed?  (For  after  all  these  things  do  the  Gentiles  seek),  for  your 
heavenly  Father  knoweth  that  ye  have  need  of  all  these  things,"  etc. 

*  This  passage  is  founded  on  and  is  in  substance  the  same  as  liiat  in 
Plato's  "Apology,"  17. 


CHAPTER  X. 

AGAINST  THOSE  WHO  EAGERLY  SEEK  PREFERMENT  AT  ROME 

IF  we  applied  ourselves  as  busily  to  our  own  work  as  the 
old  men  at  Rome  do  to  those  matters  about  which  they 
are  employed,  perhaps  we  also  might  accomplish  some- 
thing. I  am  acquainted  with  a  man  older  than  myself, 
who  is  now  superintendent  of  corn^  at  Rome,  and  I  remember 
the  time  when  he  came  here  on  his  way  back  from  exile,  and 
what  he  said  as  he  related  the  events  of  his  former  life,  and 
how  he  declared  that  with  respect  to  the  future  after  his  re- 
turn he  would  look  after  nothing  else  than  passing  the  rest 
of  his  life  in  quiet  and  tranquillity.  "For  how  little  of  life," 
he  said,  "remains  for  me."  I  replied,  you  will  not  do  it,  but 
as  soon  as  you  smell  Rome,  you  will  forget  all  tliat  you  have 
said ;  and  if  admission  is  allowed  even  into  the  imperial  pal- 
ace, he^  will  gladly  thrust  himself  in  and  thank  God.  "If 
you  find  me,  Epictetus,"  he  answered,  "setting  even  one  foot 
within  the  palace,  think  what  you  please."  Well,  what  then 
did  he  do  ?  Before  he  entered  the  city,  he  was  met  by  letters 
from  Caesar,  and  as  soon  as  he  received  them,  he  forgot 
all,  and  ever  has  added  one  piece  of  business  to  another.  I 
wish  that  I  were  now  by  his  side  to  remind  him  of  what  he 
said  when  he  was  passing  this  way,  and  to  tell  him  how  much 
better  a  seer  I  am  than  he  is. 

Well  then  do  I  say  that  man  is  an  animal  made  for  doing 
nothing?*  Certainly  not.  But  why  are  we  not  active?* 
(We  are  active.)  For  example,  as  to  myself,  as  soon  as 
day  comes,  in  a  few  words  I  remind  myself  of  what  I  must 
read  over  to  my  pupils ;  then  forthwith  I  say  to  myself.  But 
what  is  it  to  me  how  a  certain  person  shall  read?  the  first 
thing  for  me  is  to  sleep.  And  indeed  what  resemblance  is 
there  between  what  other  persons  do  and  what  we  do?  If 
you  observe  what  they  do,  you  will  understand.  And  what 
else  do  they  do  all  day  long  than  make  up  accounts,  enquire 
among  themselves,  give  and  take  advice  about  some  small 
quantity  of  grain,  a  bit  of  land,  and  such  kind  of  profits  ?     Is 


32  EPICTETUS 

it  then  the  same  thing  to  receive  a  petition  and  to  read  in  it : 
I  intreat  you  to  permit  me  to  export**  a  small  quantity  of 
corn;  and  one  to  this  effect:  "I  intreat  you  to  learn  from 
Chrysippus  what  is  the  administration  of  the  world,  and 
what  place  in  it  the  rational  animal  holds ;  consider  also  who 
you  are,  and  what  is  the  nature  of  your  good  and  bad."  Are 
these  things  like  the  other,  do  they  require  equal  care,  and 
is  it  equally  base  to  neglect  these  and  those  ?  Well  then  are 
we  the  only  persons  who  are  lazy  and  love  sleep  ?  No ;  but 
much  rather  you  young  men  are.  For  we  old  men  when  we 
see  young  men  amusing  themselves  are  eager  to  play  with 
them ;  and  if  I  saw  you  active  and  zealous,  much  more  should 
I  be  eager  myself  to  join  you  in  your  serious  pursuits. 

NOTES 

*  A  "Praefectus  Annonae,"  or  superintendent  of  the  supply  of  com 
at  Rome  is  first  mentioned  by  Livy  (iv.  12)  as  appointed  during  a 
scarcity.  At  a  later  time  this  office  was  conferred  on  Cneius  Pompeius 
for  five  years.  Maecenas  advised  Augustus  to  make  a  Praefectus 
Annonae  or  permanent  officer  over  the  corn  market  and  all  other  mar- 
kets.   He  would  thus  have  the  office  formerly  exercised  by  the  aediles. 

'  I  can  not  explain  why  the  third  person  is  used  here  instead  of  the 
second. 

*  The  Stoics  taught  that  man  is  adapted  by  his  nature  for  action.  He 
ought  not  therefore  to  withdraw  from  human  affairs,  and  indulge  in  a 
lazy  life,  not  even  a  life  of  contemplation  and  religious  observances  only. 

*  Schweighauser  proposes  a  small  alteration  in  the  Greek  text,  but 
I  do  not  think  it  necessary.  When  Epictetus  says,  "Why  are  we  not 
active?"  He  means.  Why  do  some  say  that  we  are  not  active?  And 
he  intends  to  say  that,  We  are  active,  but  not  in  the  way  in  which  some 
people  are  active.  I  have  therefore  added  in  (  )  what  is  necessary 
to  make  the  text  intelligible. 

'  A  plain  allusion  to  restraints  put  on  the  exportation  of  grain. 


CHAPTER  XI 

OF  NATURAL  AFFECTION 

WHEN  he  was  visited  by  one  of  the  magistrates, 
Epictetus  inquired  of  him  about  several  particu- 
lars, and  asked  if  he  had  children  and  a  wife. 
The  man  replied  that  he  had ;  and  Epictetus  in- 
quired further,  how  he  felt  under  the  circumstances.  "Miser- 
able," the  man  said.  Then  Epictetus  asked,  In  what  respect, 
for  men  do  not  marry  and  beget  children  in  order  to  be 
wretched,  but  rather  to  be  happy.  "But  I,"  the  man  replied, 
"am  so  wretched  about  my  little  children  that  lately,  when  my 
little  daughter  was  sick  and  was  supposed  to  be  in  danger,  I 
could  not  endure  to  stay  with  her,  but  I  left  home  till  a  person 
sent  me  news  that  she  had  recovered."  Well,  then,  said  Epic- 
tetus, do  you  think  that  you  acted  right?  'T  acted  natur- 
ally," the  man  replied.  But  convince  me  of  this  that  you 
acted  naturally,  and  I  will  convince  you  that  everything 
which  takes  place  according  to  nature  takes  place  rightly. 
"This  is  the  case,"  said  the  man,  "with  all  or  at  least  most 
fathers."  I  do  not  deny  that :  but  the  matter  about  which 
we  are  inquiring  is  whether  such  behaviour  is  right ;  for  in 
respect  to  this  matter  we  must  say  that  tumours  also  come 
for  the  good  of  the  body,  because  they  do  come ;  and  gener- 
ally we  must  say  that  to  do  wrong  is  natural,  because  nearly 
all  or  at  least  most  of  us  do  wrong.  Do  you  show  me  then 
how  your  behaviour  is  natural.  "I  can  not,"  he  said ;  "but 
do  you  rather  show  me  how  it  is  not  according  to  nature,  and 
is  not  rightly  done." 

Well,  said  Epictetus,  if  we  were  inquiring  about  white  and 
black,  what  criterion  should  we  employ  for  distinguishing 
between  them  ?  "The  sight,"  he  said.  And  if  about  hot  and 
cold,  and  hard  and  soft,  what  criterion  ?  "The  touch."  Well 
then,  since  we  are  inquiring  about  things  which  are  accord- 
ing to  nature,  and  those  which  are  done  rightly  or  not 
rightly,  what  kind  of  criterion  do  you  think  that  we  should 
employ?  "I  do  not  know,"  he  said.  And  yet  not  to  know 
3  33 


34  EPICTETUS 

the  criterion  of  colours  and  smells,  and  also  of  tastes,  is  per- 
haps no  great  harm ;  but  if  a  man  do  not  know  the  criterion 
of  good  and  bad,  and  of  things  according  to  nature  and 
contrary  to  nature,  does  this  seem  to  you  a  small  harm? 
"The  greatest  harm  (I  think)."     Come  tell  me,  do  all  things 
which  seem    to  some  persons    to  be  good    and  becoming, 
rightly  appear  such;  and  at  present  as  to  Jews  and  Syrians 
and  Egyptians  and  Romans,  is  it  possible  that  the  opinions 
of  all  of  them  in  respect  to  food  are  right?    "How  is  it  pos- 
sible?" he  said.     Well,  I  suppose,  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
that,  if  the  opinions  of  the  Egyptians  are  right,  the  opinions 
of  the  rest  must  be  wrong :  if  the  opinions  of  the  Jews  are 
right,  those  of  the  rest  can  not  be  right.     "Certainly."     But 
where  there  is  ignorance,  there  also  there  is  want  of  learning 
and  training  in  things  which  are  necessary.     He  assented 
to  this.     You  then,  said  Epictetus,  since  you  know  this,  for 
the  future  will  employ  yourself  seriously  about  nothing  else, 
and  will  apply  your  mind  to  nothing  else  than  to  learn  the 
criterion  of  things  which  are  according  to  nature,  and  by 
using  it  also  to  determine  each  several  thing.     But  in  the 
present  matter  I  have  so  much  as  this  to  aid  you  towards 
what  you  wish.     Does  affection  to  those  of  your  family 
appear  to  you  to  be  according  to  nature  and  to  be  good? 
"Certainly."    Well,  is  such  affection  natural  and  good,  and  is 
a  thing  consistent  with  reason  not  good?  "By  no  means." 
Is  then  that  which  is  consistent  with  reason  in  contradiction 
with  affection?     "I  think  not."     You  are  right,  for  if  it  is 
otherwise,  it  is  necessary  that  one  of  the  contradictions  being 
according  to  nature,  the  other  must  be  contrary  to  nature. 
Is  it  not  so  ?     "It  is,"  he  said.     Whatever  then  we  shall  dis- 
cover to  be  at  the  same  time  affectionate  and  also  consistent 
with  reason,  this  we  confidently  declare  to  be  right  and  good. 
"Agreed."    Well  then  to  leave  your  sick  child  and  to  go  away 
is  not  reasonable,  and  I  suppose  that  you  will  not  say  that  it 
is;  but  it  remains  for  us  to  inquire  if  it  is  consistent  with 
affection.     "Yes,  let  us  consider."     Did  you  then,  since  you 
had  an  affectionate  disposition  to  your  child,  do  right  when 
you  ran  off  and  left  her ;  and  has  the  mother  no  affection  for 
the  child?     "Certainly,  she  has."     Ought  then  the  mother 
also  to  have  left  her,  or  ought  she  not?    "She  ought  not." 


DISCOURSES  35 

And  the  nurse,  does  she  love  her  ?  "She  does."  Ought  then 
she  also  to  have  left  her?  "By  no  means."  And  the  peda- 
gogue.* Does  he  not  love  her  ?  "He  does  love  her."  Ought 
then  he  also  to  have  deserted  her?  and  so  should  the  child 
have  been  left  alone  and  without  help  on  account  of  the  great 
affection  of  you  the  parents  and  of  those  about  her,  or  should 
she  have  died  in  the  hands  of  those  who  neither  loved  her  nor 
cared  for  her?  "Certainly  not."  Now  this  is  unfair  and  un- 
reasonable, not  to  allow  those  who  have  equal  affection  with 
yourself  to  do  what  you  think  to  be  proper  for  yourself  to  do 
because  you  have  affection.  "It  is  absurd."  Come  then,  if 
you  were  sick,  would  you  wish  your  relations  to  be  so  affec- 
tionate, and  all  the  rest,  children  and  wife,  as  to  leave  you 
alone  and  deserted  ?  "By  no  means."  And  would  you  wish 
to  be  so  loved  by  your  own  that  through  their  excessive  affec- 
tion you  would  always  be  left  alone  in  sickness  ?  or  for  this 
reason  would  you  rather  pray,  if  it  were  possible,  to  be  loved 
by  your  enemies  and  deserted  by  them?  But  if  this  is  so, 
it  results  that  your  behaviour  was  not  at  all  an  affectionate 
act.  Well  then,  was  it  nothing  which  moved  you  and  in- 
duced you  to  desert  your  child  ? 

"How  is  that  possible  ?"  But  it  might  be  something  of  the 
kind  which  moved  a  man  at  Rome  to  wrap  up  his  head  while 
a  horse  was  running  which  he  favoured;  and  when 
contrary  to  expectation  the  horse  won,  he  required 
sponges  to  recover  from  his  faintingfit.  "What  then 
was  the  motive?"  The  exact  discussion  of  this  does 
not  belong  to  the  present  occasion  perhaps;  but  it 
is  enough  to  be  convinced  of  this,  if  what  the  philoso- 
phers say  is  true,  that  we  must  not  look  for  it  anywhere  with- 
out, but  in  all  cases  it  is  one  and  the  same  thing  which  is  the 
cause  of  our  doing  or  not  doing  something,  of  saying  or  not 
saying  something,  of  being  elated  or  depressed,  of  avoiding 
any  thing  or  pursuing :  the  very  thing  which  is  now  the  cause 
to  me  and  to  you,  to  you  of  coming  to  me  and  sitting  and 
hearing,  and  to  me  of  saying  what  I  do  say.  "And  what  is 
this  ?"  Is  it  any  other  than  our  will  to  do  so  ?  "No  other." 
But  if  we  had  willed  otherwise,  what  else  should  we  have 
been  doing  than  that  which  we  willed  to  do  ?  This  then  was 
the  cause  of  Achilles'  lamentation,  not  the  death  of  Patro- 


36  EPICTETUS 

clus ;  for  another  man  does  not  behave  thus  on  the  death  of 
his  companion;  but  it  was  because  he  chose  to  do  so.  And 
to  you  this  was  the  very  cause  of  your  then  running  away, 
that  you  chose  to  do  so ;  and  on  the  other  side,  if  you  should 
(hereafter)  stay  with  her,  the  reason  will  be  the  same.  And 
now  you  are  going  to  Rome  because  you  choose ;  and  if  you 
should  change  your  mind,  you  will  not  go  hither.  And  in 
a  word,  neither  death  nor  exile  nor  pain  nor  anything  of 
the  kind  is  the  cause  of  our  doing  anything  or  not  doing ;  but 
our  own  opinions  and  our  wills  {Soy^ara). 

Do  I  convince  you  of  this  or  not?  "You  do  convince  me." 
Such  then  as  the  causes  are  in  each  case,  such  also  are 
the  effects.  When  then  we  are  doing  anything  not  rightly 
from  this  day  we  shall  impute  it  to  nothing  else  than  to  the 
will  {Soyfia or  opinion),  from  which  we  have  done  it;  and  it 
is  that  which  we  shall  endeavour  to  take  away  and  to  extir- 
pate more  than  the  tumours  and  abscesses  out  of  the  body. 
And  in  like  manner  we  shall  give  the  same  account  of  the 
cause  of  the  things  which  we  do  right;  and  we  shall  no 
longer  allege  as  causes  of  any  evil  to  us,  either  slave  or 
neighbour,  or  wife  or  children,  being  persuaded,  that  if  we 
do  not  think  things  to  be  what  we  do  think  them  to  be,  we 
do  not  the  acts  which  follow  from  such  opinions ;  and  as  to 
thinking  or  not  thinking,  that  is  in  our  power  and  not  in  ex- 
ternals. "It  is  so,"  he  said.  From  this  day  then  we  shall  in- 
quire into  and  examine  nothing  else,  what  its  quality  is,  or 
its  state,  neither  land  nor  slaves  nor  horses  nor  dogs — noth- 
ing else  than  opinions.  "I  hope  so."  You  see  than  that  you 
must  become  a  Scholasticus,^  an  animal  whom  all  ridicule, 
if  you  really  intend  to  make  an  examination  of  your  own 
opinions :  and  that  this  is  not  the  work  of  one  hour  or  day, 
you  know  yourself. 

NOTES 

' "  When  we  are  children  our  parents  put  us  in  the  hands  of  a  peda- 
gogue to  see  on  all  occasions  that  we  take  no  harm." — Epictetus,  Frag. 

97. 

*A  Scholasticus  is  one  who  frequents  the  schools;  a  studious  and 
literary  person,  who  does  not  engage  in  the  business  of  active  life. 


CHAPTER  XII 

OF   CONTENTMENT 

WITH  respect  to  gods,  there  are  some  who  say  that  a 
divine  being  does  not  exist :  others  say  that  it  ex- 
ists, but  is  inactive  and  careless,  and  takes  no 
forethought  about  any  thing;  a  third  class  say 
that  such  a  being  exists  and  exercises  forethought,  but  only 
about  great  things  and  heavenly  things,  and  about  nothing 
on  the  earth ;  a  fourth  class  say  that  a  divine  being  exercises 
forethought  both  about  things  on  the  earth  and  heavenly 
things,  but  in  a  general  way  only,  and  not  about  things  sev- 
erally. There  is  a  fifth  class  to  whom  Ulysses  and  Soc- 
rates belong,  who  say:  "I  move  not  without  thy  know- 
ledge."^ 

Before  all  other  things  then  it  is  necessary  to  inquire 
about  each  of  these  opinions,  whether  it  is  affirmed  truly  or 
not  truly.  For  if  there  are  no  gods,  how  is  it  our  proper 
end  to  follow  them  ?  And  if  they  exist,  but  take  no  care  of 
anything,  in  this  case  also  how  will  it  be  right  to  follow 
them?  But  if  indeed  they  do  exist  and  look  after  things, 
still  if  there  is  nothing  communicated  from  them  to  men, 
nor  in  fact  to  myself,  how  even  so  is  it  right  (to  follow 
them)  ?  The  wise  and  good  man  then  after  considering  all 
these  things,  submits  his  own  mind  to  him  who  administers 
the  whole,  as  good  citizens  do  to  the  law  of  the  state.  He 
who  is  receiving  instruction  ought  to  come  to  be  instructed 
with  this  intention,  "How  shall  I  follow  the  gods  in  all 
things,  how  shall  I  be  contented  with  the  divine  administra- 
tion, and  how  can  I  become  free?"  For  he  is  free  to 
whom  every  thing  happens  according  to  his  will, 
and  whom  no  man  can  hinder.  What  then  is  free- 
dom, madness?"  Certainly  not:  for  madness  and  free- 
dom do  not  consist.  "But,  you  say,  I  would  have 
every  thing  result  just  as  I  like,  and  in  whatever  way 
I  like."  You  are  mad,  you  are  beside  yourself.  Do  you  not 
know  that  freedom  is  a  noble  and  valuable  thing?     But  for 

37 


38  EPICTETUS 

me  inconsiderately  to  wish  for  things  to  happen  as  I  incon- 
siderately like,  this  appears  to  be  not  only  not  noble,  but  even 
most  base.  For  how  do  we  proceed  in  the  matter  of  writ- 
ing? Do  I  wish  to  write  the  name  of  Dion  as  I  choose? 
No,  but  I  am  taught  to  choose  to  write  it  as  it  ought  to  be 
written.  And  how  with  respect  to  music?  In  the  same 
manner.  And  what  universally  in  every  art  or  science? 
Just  the  same.  If  it  were  not  so,  it  would  be  of  no  value  to 
know  anything,  if  knowledge  were  adapted  to  every  man's 
whim.  Is  it  then  in  this  alone,  in  this  which  is  the  greatest 
and  the  chief  thing,  I  mean  freedom,  that  I  am  permitted  to 
will  inconsiderately  ?  By  no  means ;  but  to  be  instructed  is 
this,  to  learn  to  wish  that  every  thing  may  happen  as  it  does. 
And  how  do  things  happen?  As  the  disposer  has  disposed 
them?  And  he  has  appointed  summer  and  winter,  and 
abundance  and  scarcity,  and  virtue  and  vice,  and  all  such 
opposites  for  the  harmony  of  the  whole;  and  to  each  of  us  he 
has  given  a  body,  and  parts  of  the  body,  and  possessions,  and 
companions. 

Remembering  then  this  disposition  of  things,  we  ought 
to  go  to  be  instructed,  not  that  we  may  change  the  consti- 
tution of  things, — for  we  have  not  the  power  to  do  it,  nor  is 
it  better  that  we  should  have  the  power, — but  in  order  that, 
as  the  things  around  us  are  what  they  are  and  by  nature 
exist,  we  may  maintain  our  minds  in  harmony  with  the 
things  which  happen.  For  can  we  escape  from  men?  and 
how  is  it  possible?  And  if  we  associate  with  them,  can  we 
change  them?  Who  gives  us  the  power?  What  then  re- 
mains, or  what  method  is  discovered  of  holding  commerce 
with  them?  Is  there  such  a  method  by  which  they  shall 
do  what  seems  fit  to  them,  and  we  not  the  less  shall  be  in 
a  mood  which  is  conformable  to  nature?  But  you  are  un- 
willing to  endure  and  are  discontented :  and  if  you  are  alone, 
you  call  it  solitude ;  and  if  you  are  with  men,  you  call  them 
knaves  and  robbers;  and  you  find  fault  with  your  own 
parents  and  children,  and  brothers  and  neighbours.  But  you 
ought  when  you  are  alone  to  call  this  condition  by  the  name 
of  tranquillity  and  freedom,  and  to  think  yourself  like  to  the 
gods ;  and  when  you  are  with  many,  you  ought  not  to  call  it 


DISCOURSES  39 

crowd,  nor  trouble,  nor  uneasiness,  but  festival  and  assembly, 
and  so  accept  all  contentedly. 

What  then  is  the  punishment  of  those  who  do  not  accept? 
It  is  to  be  what  they  are.  Is  any  person  dissatisfied  with 
being  alone  ?  let  him  be  alone.  Is  a  man  dissatisfied  with  his 
parents  ?  let  him  be  a  bad  son,  and  lament.  Is  he  dissatisfied 
with  his  children?  let  him  be  a  bad  father.  Cast  him  into 
prison.  What  prison  ?  Where  he  is  already,  for  he  is  there 
against  his  will ;  and  where  a  man  is  against  his  will,  there 
he  is  in  prison.  So  Socrates  was  not  in  prison,  for  he  was 
there  willingly, 

"Must  my  leg  then  be  lamed?"  Wretch,  do  you 
then  on  account  of  one  poor  leg  find  fault  with  the  world? 
Will  you  not  willingly  surrender  it  for  the  whole  ?  Will  you 
not  withdraw  from  it?  Will  you  not  gladly  part  with  it  to 
him  who  gave  it  ?  And  will  you  be  vexed  and  discontented 
with  the  things  established  by  Zeus,  which  he  with  the 
Moirse  (fates)  who  were  present  and  spinning  the  thread 
of  your  generation,  defined  and  put  in  order?  Know  you 
not  how  small  a  part  you  are  compared  with  the  whole.  I 
mean  with  respect  to  the  body,  for  as  to  intelligence  you  are 
not  inferior  to  the  gods  nor  less ;  for  the  magnitude  of  intelli- 
gence is  not  measured  by  length  nor  yet  by  height,  but  by 
thoughts.  Will  you  not  then  choose  to  place  your  good  in 
that  in  which  you  are  equal  to  the  gods  ? 

"Wretch  that  I  am  to  have  such  a  father  and  mother." — 
What  then,  was  it  permitted  to  you  to  come  forth 
and  to  select  and  to  say:  "Let  such  a  man  at  this 
moment  unite  with  such  a  woman  that  I  may  be  pro- 
duced ?"  It  was  not  permitted,  but  it  was  a  necessity  for  your 
parents  to  exist  first,  and  then  for  you  to  be  begotten.  Of 
what  kind  of  parents?  Of  such  as  they  were.  Well  then, 
since  they  are  such  as  they  are,  is  there  no  remedy  given  to 
you?  Now  if  you  did  not  know  for  what  purpose  you  possess 
the  faculty  of  vision,  you  would  be  unfortunate  and  wretched 
if  you  closed  your  eyes  when  colours  were  brought  before 
them ;  but  in  that  you  possess  greatness  of  soul  and  nobility 
of  spirit  for  every  event  that  may  happen,  and  you  know 
not  that  you  possess  them,  are  you  not  more  unfortunate  and 
wretched  ?     Things  are  brought  close  to  you  which  are  pro- 


40  EPICTETUS 

portionate  to  the  power  which  you  possess,  but  you  turn  away 
this  power  most  particularly  at  the  very  time  when  you  ought 
to  maintain  it  open  and  discerning.  Do  you  not  rather 
thank  the  gods  that  they  have  allowed  you  to  be  above  these 
things  which  they  have  not  placed  in  your  power,  and  have 
made  you  accountable  only  for  those  which  are  in  your 
power?  As  to  your  parents,  the  gods  have  left  you  free 
from  responsibility;  and  so  with  respect  to  your  brothers, 
and  your  body,  and  possessions,  and  death  and  life.  For 
what  then  have  they  made  you  responsible?  For  that  which 
alone  is  in  your  power,  the  proper  use  of  appearances.  Why 
then  do  you  draw  on  yourself  the  things  for  which  you  are 
not  responsible?  It  is,  indeed,  a  giving  of  trouble  to  your- 
self. 

NOTE 

*  The  line  is  from  the  prayer  of  Ulysses  to  Athena :  "Hear  me  child 
of  Zeus,  thou  who  standest  by  me  always  in  all  dangers,  nor  do  I  even 
move  without  thy  knowledge."  Iliad,  x.  278.  Socrates  said  that  the  gods 
know  everything,  what  is  said  and  done  and  thought  (Xenophon,  Mem. 
i.  I.  19).  Compare  Cicero,  De  Nat.  Deorum,  i.  i,  2;  and  Dr.  Price's 
Dissertation  on  Providence,  sect.  i.  Epictetus  enumerates  the  various 
opinions  about  the  gods  in  ancient  times.  The  reader  may  consult  the 
notes  in  Schweighauser's  edition.  The  opinions  about  God  among 
modern  nations,  who  are  called  civilized,  and  are  so  more  or  less,  do 
not  seem  to  be  so  varied  as  in  ancient  times ;  but  the  contrasts  in  modern 
opinions  are  striking.  These  modern  opinions  vary  between  denial  of  a 
God,  though  the  number  of  those  who  deny  is  perhaps  not  large,  and  the 
superstitious  notions  about  God  and  his  administration  of  the  world, 
which  are  taught  by  teachers,  learned  and  ignorant,  and  exercise  a  great 
power  over  the  minds  of  those  who  are  unable  or  do  not  dare  to  exer- 
cise the  faculty  of  reason. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOW  EVERYTHING  MAY  BE  DONE  ACCEPTABLY  TO  THE  GODS 

WHEN  some  one  asked,  how  may  a  man  eat  accept- 
ably to  the  gods,  he  answered  :  If  he  can  eat  justly 
and  contentedly,  and  with  equanimity,  and  tem- 
perately and  orderly,  will  it  not  be  also  acceptably 
to  the  gods  ?  But  when  you  have  asked  for  warm  water  and 
the  slave  has  not  heard,  or  if  he  did  hear  has  brought  only 
tepid  water,  or  he  is  not  even  found  to  be  in  the  house,  then 
not  to  be  vexed  or  to  burst  with  passion,  is  not  this  accept- 
able to  the  gods? — "How  then  shall  a  man  endure  such  per- 
sons as  this  slave?"  Slave  yourself,  will  you  not  bear  with 
your  own  brother,  who  has  Zeus  for  his  progenitor,  and  is 
like  a  son  from  the  same  seeds  and  of  the  same  descent  from 
above  ?  But  if  you  have  been  put  in  any  such  higher  place, 
will  you  immediately  make  yourself  a  tyrant  ?  Will  you  not 
remember  who  you  are,  and  whom  you  rule?  that  they  are 
kinsmen,  that  they  are  brethren  by  nature,  that  they  are  the 
ofiFspring  of  Zeus?^ — "But  I  have  purchased  them,  and  they 
have  not  purchased  me."  Do  you  see  in  what  direction  you 
are  looking,  that  it  is  towards  the  earth,  towards  the  pit,  that 
it  is  towards  these  wretched  laws  of  dead  men  ?^  but  towards 
the  laws  of  the  gods  you  are  not  looking. 

NOTES 

*  Mrs.  Carter  compares  Job  xxxi.  15 :  "Did  not  he  that  made  me  in 
the  womb  make  him  (my  man-servant)  ?  And  did  not  one  fashion  us 
in  the  womb?" 

'  I  suppose  he  means  human  laws,  which  have  made  one  man  a  slave 
to  another ;  and  when  he  says  "dead  men,"  he  may  mean  mortal  men,  as 
contrasted  with  the  gods  or  God,  who  has  made  all  men  brothers. 


CHAPTER  XIV^ 

THAT  THE  DEITY  OVERSEES  ALL  THINGS 

WHEN  a  person  asked  him  how  a  man  could  be  con- 
vinced that  all  his  actions  are  under  the  inspec- 
tion of  Grod,  he  answered,  Do  you  not  think  that 
all  things  are  united  in  one?  "I  do,"  the  person 
replied.  Well,  do  you  not  think  that  earthly  things  have  a 
natural  agreement  and  union  with  heavenly  things?  "I  do." 
And  how  else  so  regularly  as  if  by  God's  command,  when 
He  bids  the  plants  to  flower,  do  they  flower  ?  when  He  bids 
them  to  send  forth  shoots,  do  they  shoot?  when  He  bids  them 
to  produce  fruit,  how  else  do  they  produce  fruit?  when  He 
bids  the  fruit  to  ripen,  does  it  ripen?  when  again  He  bids 
them  to  cast  down  the  fruits,  how  else  do  they  cast  them 
down  ?  and  when  to  shed  the  leaves,  do  they  shed  the  leaves  ? 
and  when  He  bids  them  to  fold  themselves  up  and  to  remain 
quiet  and  rest,  how  else  do  they  remain  quiet  and  rest  ?  And 
how  else  at  the  growth  and  the  wane  of  the  moon,  and  at  the 
approach  and  recession  of  the  sun,  are  so  great  an  alteration 
and  change  to  the  contrary  seen  in  earthly  things  ?  But  are 
plants  and  our  bodies  so  bound  up  and  united  with  the  whole, 
and  are  not  our  souls  much  more?  and  our  souls  so  bound 
up  and  in  contact  with  God  as  parts  of  Him  and  portions  of 
Him ;  and  does  not  God  perceive  every  motion  of  these  parts 
as  being  his  own  motion  connate  with  himself?  Now  are 
you  able  to  think  of  the  divine  administration,  and  about  all 
things  divine,  and  at  the  same  time  also  about  human  affairs, 
and  to  be  moved  by  ten  thousand  things  at  the  same  time  in 
your  senses  and  in  your  understanding,  and  to  assent  to 
some,  and  to  dissent  from  others,  and  again  as  to  some  things 
to  suspend  your  judgment;  and  do  you  retain  in  your  soul 
so  many  impressions  from  so  many  and  various  things,  and 
being  moved  by  them_,  do  you  fall  upon  notions  similar  to 
those  first  impressed,  and  do  you  retain  numerous  arts  and 
the  memories  of  ten  thousand  things ;  and  is  not  God  able  to 
oversee  all  things,  and  to  be  present  with  all,  and  to  receive 

43 


DISCOURSES  43 

from  all  a  certain  communication?  And  is  the  sun  able  to 
illuminate  so  large  a  part  of  the  All,  and  to  leave  so  little  not 
illuminated,  that  part  only  which  is  occupied  by  the  earth's 
shadow;  and  He  who  made  the  sun  itself  and  makes  it  go 
round,  being  a  small  part  of  himself  compared  with  the 
whole,  can  not  He  perceive  all  things  ? 

"But  I  can  not/'  the  man  may  reply,  "comprehend  all  these 
things  at  once."  But  who  tells  you  that  you  have  equal  power 
with  Zeus?  Nevertheless  he  has  placed  by  every  man  a 
guardian,  every  man's  Daemon,  to  whom  he  has  committed 
the  care  of  the  man,  a  guardian  who  never  sleeps,  is  never 
deceived.  For  to  what  better  and  more  careful  guardian 
could  He  have  intrusted  each  of  us  ?  When  then  you  have 
shut  the  doors  and  made  darkness  within,  remember  never  to 
say  that  you  are  alone,  for  you  are  not;  but  God  is  within, 
and  your  Daemon  is  within,  and  what  need  have  they  of  light 
to  see  what  you  are  doing  ?  To  this  God  you  ought  to  swear 
an  oath  just  as  the  soldiers  do  to  Caesar.  But  they  who  are 
hired  for  pay  swear  to  regard  the  safety  of  Caesar  before  all 
things ;  and  you  who  have  received  so  many  and  such  great 
favours,  will  you  not  swear,  or  when  you  have  sworn,  will 
you  not  abide  by  your  oath?  And  what  shall  you  swear? 
Never  to  be  disobedient,  never  to  make  any  charges,  never  to 
find  fault  with  any  thing  that  he  has  given,  and  never  unwill- 
ingly to  do  or  to  suffer  any  thing  that  is  necessary.  Is  this 
oath  like  the  soldier's  oath  ?  The  soldiers  swear  not  to  prefer 
any  man  to  Caesar :  in  this  oath  men  swear  to  honour  them- 
selves before  all.' 


CHAPTER  XV 

WHAT  PHILOSOPHY  PROMISES 

WHEN  a  man  was  consulting  him  how  he  should  per- 
suade his  brother  to  cease  being  angry  with  him, 
Epictetus  replied,  Philosophy  does  not  propose  to 
secure  for  a  man  any  external  thing.  If  it  did 
(or,  if  it  were  not,  as  I  say), Philosophy  would  be  allowing 
something  which  is  not  within  its  province.  For  as  the  car- 
penter's material  is  wood,  and  that  of  the  statuary  is  copper, 
so  the  matter  of  the  art  of  living  is  each  man's  life. — "What 
then  is  my  brother's  life?" — That  again  belongs  to  his 
own  art ;  but  with  respect  to  yours,  it  is  one  of  the  external 
things,  like  a  piece  of  land,  like  health,  like  reputation.  But 
Philosophy  promises  none  of  these.  In  every  circumstance 
I  will  maintain,  she  says,  the  governing  part  conformable  to 
nature.  Whose  governing  part?  His  in  whom  I  am,  she 
says. 

"How  then  shall  my  brother  cease  to  be  angry  with  me?" 
Bring  him  to  me  and  I  will  tell  him.  But  I  have  nothing  to 
say  to  you  about  his  anger. 

When  the  man,  who  was  consulting  him,  said,  "I  seek  to 
know  this.  How,  even  if  my  brother  is  not  reconciled  to  me, 
shall  I  maintain  myself  in  a  state  conformable  to  nature?" 
Nothing  great,  said  Epictetus,  is  produced  suddenly,  since 
not  even  the  grape  or  the  fig  is.  If  you  say  to  me  now  that 
you  want  a  fig,  I  will  answer  to  you  that  it  requires  time :  let 
it  flower^  first,  then  put  forth  fruit,  and  then  ripen.  Is  then 
the  fruit  of  a  fig-tree  not  perfected  suddenly  and  in  one  hour, 
and  would  you  possess  the  fruit  of  a  man's  mind  in  so  short  a 
time  and  so  easily  ?     Do  not  expect  it,  even  if  I  tell  you. 


* "  The  philosopher  had  forgot  that  fig-trees  do  not  blossom"  (Mrs. 
Carter).  The  flowers  of  a  fig  are  inside  the  fleshy  receptacle  which 
becomes  the  fruit. 


44 


CHAPTER  XVI 

OF  PROVIDENCE 

DO  not  wonder  if  for  other  animals  than  man  all  things 
are  provided  for  the  body,  not  only  food  and  drink, 
but  beds  also,  and  they  have  no  need  of  shoes  nor 
bed  materials,  nor  clothing ;  but  we  require  all  these 
additional  things.  For  animals  not  being  made  for  them- 
selves, but  for  service,  it  was  not  fit  for  them  to  be  made  so 
as  to  need  other  things.  For  consider  what  it  would  be  for 
us  to  take  care  not  only  of  ourselves,  but  also  about  cattle  and 
asses,  how  they  should  be  clothed,  and  how  shod,  and  how 
they  should  eat  and  drink.  Now  as  soldiers  are  ready  for 
their  commander,  shod,  clothed,  and  armed :  but  it  would  be 
a  hard  thing  for  the  chiliarch  (tribune)  to  go  round  and  shoe 
or  clothe  his  thousand  men :  so  also  nature  has  formed  the 
animals  which  are  made  for  service,  all  ready,  prepared,  and 
requiring  no  further  care.  So  one  little  boy  with  only  a  stick 
drives  the  cattle. 

But  now  we,  instead  of  being  thankful  that  we  need  not 
take  the  same  care  of  animals  as  of  ourselves,  complain  of 
God  on  our  own  account ;  and  yet,  in  the  name  of  Zeus  and 
the  gods,  any  one  thing  of  those  which  exist  would  be 
enough  to  make  a  man  perceive  the  providence  of  God,  at 
least  a  man  who  is  modest  and  grateful.  And  speak  not  to 
me  now  of  the  great  things,  but  only  of  this,  that  milk  is 
produced  from  grass,  and  cheese  from  milk,  and  wool  from 
skins.  Who  made  these  things  or  devised  them?  No  one, 
you  say.     O  amazing  shamelessness  and  stupidity ! 

Well,  let  us  omit  the  works  of  nature,  and  contemplate  her 
smaller  (subordinate, jrdp«p;KQr)  acts.  Is  there  anything 
less  useful  than  the  hair  on  the  chin  ?  What  then,  has  not 
nature  used  this  hair  also  in  the  most  suitable  manner  pos- 
sible? Has  she  not  by  it  distinguished  the  male  and  the 
female  ?  does  not  the  nature  of  every  man  forthwith  proclaim 
from  a  distance,  I  am  a  man :  as  such  approach  me,  as  such 
speak  to  me ;  look  for  nothing  else ;  see  the  signs  ?     Again,  in 

45 


46  EPICTETUS 

the  case  of  women,  as  she  has  mingled  something  softer  in 
the  voice,  so  she  has  also  deprived  them  of  hair  (on  the 
chin).  You  say,  not  so:  the  human  animal  ought  to  have 
been  left  without  marks  of  distinction,  and  each  of  us  should 
have  been  obliged  to  proclaim,  "I  am  a  man."  But  how  is  not 
the  sign  beautiful  and  becoming  and  venerable?  how  much 
more  beautiful  than  the  cock's  comb,  how  much  more  becom- 
ing than  the  lion's  mane  ?  For  this  reason  we  ought  to  pre- 
serve the  signs  which  God  has  given,  we  ought  not  to  throw 
them  away,  nor  to  confound,  as  much  as  we  can,  the  distinc- 
tions of  the  sexes. 

Are  these  the  only  works  of  providence  in  us  ?  And  what 
words  are  sufficient  to  praise  them  and  set  them  forth  accord- 
ing to  their  worth?  For  if  we  had  understanding,  ought 
we  to  do  any  thing  else  both  jointly  and  severally  than  to  sing 
hymns  and  bless  the  deity,  and  to  tell  of  his  benefits  ?  Ought 
we  not  when  we  are  digging  and  ploughing  and  eating  to 
sing  this  hymn  to  God?  "Great  is  God,  who  has  given  us 
such  implements  with  which  we  shall  cultivate  the  earth : 
great  is  God  who  has  given  us  hands,  the  power  of  swallow- 
ing, a  stomach,  imperceptible  growth,  and  the  power  of 
breathing  while  we  sleep."  This  is  what  we  ought  to  sing 
on  every  occasion,  and  to  sing  the  greatest  and  most  divine 
hymn  for  giving  us  the  faculty  of  comprehending  these 
things  and  using  a  proper  way.  Well  then,  since  most  of 
you  have  become  blind,  ought  there  not  to  be  some  man  to 
fill  this  office,  and  on  behalf  of  all  to  sing  the  hymn  to  God? 
For  what  else  can  I  do,  a  lame  old  man,  than  sing  hymns  to 
God?  If  then  I  was  a  nightingale,  I  would  do  the  part  of 
a  nightingale,  if  I  were  a  swan,  I  would  do  like  a  swan.  But 
now  I  am  a  rational  creature,  and  I  ought  to  praise  Grod :  this 
is  my  work;  I  do  it,  nor  will  I  desert  this  post,  so  long  as  I 
am  allowed  to  keep  it;  and  I  exhort  you  to  join  in  this  same 
song. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THAT  THE  LOGICAL  ART  IS  NECESSARY 

SINCE  reason  is  the  faculty  which  analyses*  and  perfects 
the  rest,  and  it  ought  itself  not  to  be  unanalysed,  by 
what  should  it  be  analysed?  for  it  is  plain  that  this 
should  be  done  either  by  itself  or  by  another  thing. 
Either  then  this  other  thing  also  is  reason,  or  something  else 
superior  to  reason ;  which  is  impossible.  But  if  it  is  reason, 
again  who  shall  analyse  that  reason?  For  if  that  reas®n 
does  this  for  itself,  our  reason  also  can  do  it.  But  if  we 
shall  require  something  else,  the  thing  will  go  on  to  infinity 
and  have  no  end.^  Reason  therefore  is  analysed  by  itself. 
Yes:  but  it  is  more  urgent  to  cure  (our  opinions^)  and  the 
•like.  Will  you  then  hear  about  those  things  ?  Hear.  But 
if  you  should  say,  "I  know  not  whether  you  are  arguing  truly 
or  falsely,"  and  if  I  should  express  myself  in  any  way  am- 
biguously, and  you  should  say  to  me  "Distinguish,"  I  will 
bear  with  you  no  longer,  and  I  shall  say  to  you,  "It  is  more 
urgent."*  This  is  the  reason,  I  suppose,  why  they  (the  Stoic 
teachers)  place  the  logical  art  first,  as  in  the  measuring  of 
corn  we  place  first  the  examination  of  the  measure.  But  if 
we  do  not  determine  first  what  is  a  modius,  and  what  is  a 
balance,  how  shall  we  be  able  to  measure  or  weigh  any- 
thing? . 

In  this  case  then  if  we  have  not  fully  learned  and  accu- 
rately examined  the  criterion  of  all  other  things,  by  which 
the  other  things  are  learned,  shall  we  be  able  to  examine  accu- 
rately and  to  learn  fully  anything  else  ?  How  is  this  possi- 
ble ?  Yes ;  but  the  modius  is  only  wood,  and  a  thing  which 
produces  no  fruit. — But  it  is  a  thing  which  can  measure 
corn. — Logic  also  produces  no  fruit. — As  to  this  indeed  we 
shall  see:  but  then  even  if  a  man  should  grant  this,  it  is 
enough  that  logic  has  the  power  of  distinguishing  and  ex- 
amining other  things,  and,  as  we  may  say,  of  measuring  and 
weighing  them.  Who  says  this?  Is  it  only  Chrysippus, 
and  Zeno,  and  Cleanthes?     And  does  not  Antisthenes  say 

47 


48  EPICTETUS 

SO  ?*  And  who  is  it  that  has  written  that  the  examination  of 
names  is  the  beginning  of  education?  And  does  not  Soc- 
rates say  so?  And  of  whom  does  Xenophon  write,  that 
he  began  with  the  examination  of  names,  what  each  name 
signified?®  Is  this  then  the  great  and  wondrous  thing  to 
understand  or  interpret  Chryisippus?  Who  says  this? — 
What  then  is  the  wondrous  thing? — To  understand  the  will 
of  nature.  Well  then  do  you  apprehend  it  yourself  by  your 
own  power  ?  and  what  more  have  you  need  of  ?  For  if  it  is 
true  that  all  men  err  involuntarily,  and  you  have  learned  the 
truth,  of  necessity  you  must  act  right. — But  in  truth  I  do  not 
apprehend  the  will  of  nature.  Who  then  tells  us  what  it  is  ? 
— They  say  that  it  is  Chrysippus. — I  proceed,  and  I  inquire 
what  this  interpreter  of  nature  says.  I  begin  not  to  under- 
stand what  he  says :  I  seek  an  interpreter  of  Chrysippus. — 
Well,  consider  how  this  is  said,  just  as  if  it  were  said  in  the 
Roman  tongue.'^ — What  then  is  the  superciliousness  of  the 
interpreter?  There  is  no  superciliousness  which  can  justly 
be  charged  even  to  Chrysippus,  if  he  only  interprets  the  will 
of  nature,  but  does  not  follow  it  himself ;  and  much  more  is 
this  so  with  his  interpreter.  For  we  have  no  need  of  Chry- 
sippus for  his  own  sake,  but  in  order  that  we  may  under- 
stand nature.  Nor  do  we  need  a  diviner  (sacrificer)  on  his 
own  acount,  but  because  we  think  that  through  him  we  shall 
know  the  future  and  understand  the  signs  given  by  the  gods ; 
nor  do  we  need  the  viscera  of  animals  for  their  own  sake, 
but  because  through  them  signs  are  given;  nor  do  we  look 
with  wonder  on  the  crow  or  raven,  but  on  God,  who  through 
them  gives  signs? 

I  go  then  to  the  interpreter  of  these  things  and  the  sacri- 
ficer, and  I  say,  "Inspect  the  viscera  for  me,  and  tell  me  what 
signs  they  give."  The  man  takes  the  viscera,  opens  them,  and 
interprets :  "Man,"  he  says,  "you  have  a  will  free  by  nature 
from  hindrance  and  compulsion;  this  is  written  here  in  the 
viscera."  I  will  show  you  this  first  in  the  matter  of  assent. 
Can  any  man  hinder  you  from  assenting  to  the  truth  ?  No 
man  can.  Can  any  man  compel  you  to  receive  what  is  false. 
No  man  can.  You  see  that  in  this  matter  you  have  the 
faculty  of  the  will  free  from  hindrance,  free  from  compul- 
sion, unimpeded.     Well,  then,  in  the  matter  of  desire  and 


DISCOURSES  49 

pursuit  of  an  object,  is  it  otherwise?  And  what  can  over- 
come pursuit  except  another  pursuit?  And  what  can  over- 
come desire  and  aversion  (  eKKXiatv  )  except  another  desire 
and  aversion  ?  But,  you  object :  "If  you  place  before  me  the 
fear  of  death,  you  do  compel  me."  No,  it  is  not  what  is 
placed  before  you  that  compels,  but  your  opinion  that  it  is 
better  to  do  so  and  so  than  to  die.  In  this  matter  then  it  is 
your  opinion  that  compelled  you :  that  is,  will  compelled  will. 
For  if  God  had  made  that  part  of  himself,  which  he  took 
from  himself  and  gave  to  us,  of  such  a  nature  as  to  be  hin- 
dered or  compelled  either  by  himself  or  by  another,  he  would 
not  then  be  God  nor  would  he  be  taking  care  of  us  as  he 
ought.  This,  says  the  diviner,  I  find  in  the  victims:  these 
are  the  things  which  are  signified  to  you.  If  you  choose,  you 
are  free;  if  you  choose,  you  will  blame  no  one:  you  will 
charge  no  one.  All  will  be  at  the  same  time  according  to 
your  mind  and  the  mind  of  God.  For  the  sake  of  this  divin- 
ation I  go  to  this  diviner  and  to  the  philosopher,  not  admir- 
ing him  for  this  interpretation,  but  admiring  the  things 
which  he  interprets. 

^OTES 

^Aoyoi  kcrriv  6  SiapQp&v.  /ItapQovv  means  "to  divide  a  thing  into 
its  parts  or  members."The  word  "analyse"  seems  to  be  the  nearest 
equivalent. 

*  This  is  obscure.  The  conclusion,  "Reason  therefore  is  analysed  by 
itself"  is  not  in  Epictetus;  but  it  is  implied.  Antoninus  writes:  "These 
are  the  properties  of  the  rational  soul ;  it  sees  itself,  analyses  itself."  If 
reason,  our  reason,  requires  another  reason  to  analyse  it,  that  other 
reason  will  require  another  reason  to  analyse  that  other  reason;  and  so 
on  to  infinity.  If  reason  then,  our  reason,  can  be  analysed,  it  must  be 
analysed  by  itself. 

' "  Our  opinions."  There  is  some  defect  in  the  text,  as  Wolf  remarks. 
"The  opponent,"  he  says,  "disparages  Log^c  (Dialectic)  as  a  thing 
which  is  not  necessary  to  make  men  good,  and  he  prefers  moral  teaching 
to  Logic:  but  Epictetus  informs  him,  that  a  man  who  is  not  a  Dialecti- 
cian will  not  have  a  sufficient  perception  of  moral  teaching." 

*  He  repeats  the  words  of  the  supposed  opponent ;  and  he  means  that 
his  adversary's  difficulty  shows  the  necessity  of  Dialectic. 

•  Antisthenes  who  professed  the  Cynic  philosophy,  rejected  Logic  and 
Physic. 

•  Epictetus  knew  what  education  ought  to  be.  We  learn  language,  and 
we  ought  to  learn  what  it  means.  When  children  learn  words,  they 
should  learn  what  the  thing  is  which  is  signified  by  the  word.  In  the 
case  of  children  this  can  only  be  done  imperfectly  as  to  som.e  words,  but 
it  may  be  done  even  then  in  some  degree;  and  it  must  be  done,  or  the 
word  signifies  nothing,  or,  what  is  equally  bad,  the  word  is  misunder- 


50 


EPICTETUS 


stood.  All  of  us  pass  our  lives  in  ignorance  of  many  words  which  we 
use;  some  of  us  in  greater  ignorance  than  others,  but  all  of  us  in  ig- 
norance to  some  degree. 

'  The  supposed  interpreter  says  this.  When  Epictetus  says  "the  Ro- 
man tongue,"  perhaps  he  means  that  the  supposed  opponent  is  a  Roman 
and  does  not  know  Greek  well. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THAT    WE    OUGHT    NOT    TO    BE    ANGRY    WITH    THE    ERRORS 
(faults)    of  OTHERS 

IF  what  philosophers  say  is  true,  that  all  men  have  one 
principle,  as  in  the  case  of  assent  the  persuasion  that 
a  thing  is  so,  and  in  the  case  of  dissent  the  persuasion 
that  a  thing  is  not  so,  and  in  the  case  of  a  suspense  of 
judgment  the  persuasion  that  a  thing  is  uncertain,  so  also 
in  the  case  of  a  movement  towards  any  thing  the  persuasion 
that  a  thing  is  for  a  man's  advantage,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
think  that  one  thing  is  advantageous  and  to  desire  another, 
and  to  judge  one  thing  to  be  proper  and  to  move  towards  an- 
other, why  then  are  we  angry  with  the  many?^  They  are 
thieves  and  robbers,  you  may  say.  What  do  you  mean  by 
thieves  and  robbers?  They  are  mistaken  about  good  and 
evil.  Ought  we  then  to  be  angry  with  them,  or  to  pity 
them?  But  show  them  their  error,  and  you  will  see  how 
they  desist  from  their  errors.  If  they  do  not  see  their  errors, 
they  have  nothing  superior  to  their  present  opinion. 

Ought  not  then  this  robber  and  this  adulterer  to  be  des- 
troyed ?  By  no  means  say  so,  but  speak  rather  in  this  way : 
This  man  who  has  been  mistaken  and  deceived  about  the 
most  important  things,  and  blinded,  not  in  the  faculty  of 
vision  which  distinguishes  white  and  black,  but  in  the  faculty 
which  distinguishes  good  and  bad,  should  we  not  destroy 
him?  If  you  speak  thus,  you  will  see  how  inhuman  this  is 
which  you  say,  and  that  it  is  just  as  if  you  would 
say,  "Ought  we  not  to  destroy  this  blind  and  deaf 
man?"  But  if  the  greatest  harm  is  in  the  priva- 
tion of  the  greatest  things,  and  the  greatest  thing 
in  every  man  is  the  will  or  choice  such  as  it 
ought  to  be,  and  a  man  is  deprived  of  this  will,  why  are  you 
also  angry  with  him?  Man,  you  ought  not  to  be  affected 
contrary  to  nature  by  the  bad  things  of  another.  Pity  him 
rather :  drop  this  readiness  to  be  offended  and  to  hate,  and 
these  words  which  the  many  utter:     "these  accursed  and 

51 


52  EPICTETUS 

odious  fellows."  How  have  you  been  made  so  wise  at  once? 
and  how  are  you  so  peevish  ?  Why  then  are  we  angry  ?  Is 
it  because  we  value  so  much  the  things  of  which  these  men 
rob  us  ?  Do  not  admire  your  clothes,  and  then  you  will  not 
be  angry  with  the  thief.  Do  not  admire  the  beauty  of  your 
wife,  and  you  will  not  be  angry  with  the  adulterer.  Learn 
that  a  thief  and  an  adulterer  have  no  place  in  the  things 
which  are  yours,  but  in  those  which  belong  to  others  and 
which  are  not  in  your  power.  If  you  dismiss  these  things 
and  consider  them  as  nothing,  with  whom  are  you  still 
angry?  But  so  long  as  you  value  these  things,  be  angry 
with  yourself  rather  than  with  the  thief  and  the  adulterer. 
Consider  the  matter  thus :  you  have  fine  clothes ;  your  neigh- 
bour has  not:  you  have  a  window;  you  wish  to  air  the 
clothes.  The  thief  does  not  know  wherein  man's  good  con- 
sists, but  he  thinks  that  it  consists  in  having  fine  clothes,  the 
very  thing  which  you  also  think.  Must  he  not  then  come 
and  take  them  away  ?  When  you  show  a  cake  to  greedy  per- 
sons, and  swallow  it  all  yourself,  do  you  expect  them  not  to 
snatch  it  from  you  ?  Do  not  provoke  them :  do  not  have  a 
window :  do  not  air  your  clothes.  I  also  lately  had  an  iron 
lamp  placed  by  the  side  of  my  household  gods :  hearing  a 
noise  at  the  door,  I  ran  down,  and  found  that  the  lamp  had 
been  carried  off.  I  reflected  that  he  who  had  taken  the  lamp 
had  done  nothing  strange.  What  then?  To-morrow,  I 
said,  you  will  find  an  earthen  lamp :  for  a  man  only  loses  that 
which  he  has.  'T  have  lost  my  garment."  The  reason  is  that 
you  had  a  garment.  "1  have  pain  in  my  head."  Have  you 
any  pain  in  your  horns?  Why  then  are  you  troubled?  for 
we  only  lose  those  things,  we  have  only  pains  about  those 
things  which  we  possess.* 

But  the  tyrant  will  chain — what?  the  leg.  He  will  take 
away — what?  the  neck.  What  then  will  he  not  chain  and 
not  take  away  ?  the  will.  This  is  why  the  ancients  taught  the 
maxim.  Know  thyself.  Therefore  we  ought  to  exercise  our- 
selves in  small  things,  and  beginning  with  them  to  proceed  to 
the  greater.  "I  have  pain  in  the  head."  Do  not  say,  alas !  "I 
have  pain  in  the  ear."  Do  not  say,  alas!  And  I  do  not  say, 
that  you  are  not  allowed  to  groan,  but  do  not  groan  in- 
wardly ;  and  if  your  slave  is  slow  in  bringing  a  bandage,  do 


DISCOURSES  53 

not  cry  out  and  torment  yourself,  and  say,  "Everybody  hates 
me" :  for  who  would  not  hate  such  a  man?  For  the  future, 
relying  on  these  opinions,  walk  about  upright,  free;  not 
trusting  to  the  size  of  your  body,  as  an  athlete,  for  a  man 
ought  not  to  be  invincible  in  the  way  that  an  ass  is.^ 

Who  then  is  the  invincible?  It  is  he  whom  none  of  the 
things  disturb  which  are  independent  of  the  will.  Then  ex- 
amining one  circumstance  after  another  I  observe,  as  in  the 
case  of  an  athlete ;  he  has  come  off  victorious  in  the  first  con- 
test :  well  then,  as  to  the  second  ?  and  what  if  there  should 
be  great  heat  ?  and  what,  if  it  should  be  at  Olympia  ?  And 
the  same  I  say  in  this  case:  if  you  should  throw  money  in 
his  way,  he  will  despise  it.  Well,  suppose  you  put  a  young 
girl  in  his  way,  what  then?  and  what,  if  it  is  in  the  dark?* 
what  if  it  should  be  a  little  reputation,  or  abuse ;  and  what,  if 
it  should  be  praise ;  and  what  if  it  should  be  death  ?  He  is 
able  to  overcome  all.  What  then  if  it  be  in  heat,  and  what 
if  it  is  in  the  rain,  and  what  if  he  be  in  a  melancholy  (mad) 
mood,  and  what  if  he  be  asleep  ?  He  will  still  conquer.  This 
is  my  invincible  athlete. 

NOTES 

*  Mrs.  Carter  says :  "The  most  ignorant  persons  often  practice  what 
they  know  to  be  evil ;  and  they,  who  voluntarily  suffer,  as  many  do,  their 
inclinations  to  blind  their  judgment,  are  not  justified  by  following  it. 
(Perhaps  she  means  "them,"  "their  inclinations.")  The  doctrine  of 
Epictetus  therefore,  here  and  elsewhere,  on  this  head,  contradicts  the 
voice  of  reason  and  conscience ;  nor  is  it  less  pernicious  than  ill- 
grounded.  It  destroys  all  guilt  and  merit,  all  punishment  and  reward, 
all  blame  of  ourselves  or  others,  all  sense  of  misbehaviour  towards  our 
fellow-creatures,  or  our  Creator.  No  wonder  that  such  philosophers 
did  not  teach  repentance  towards  God." 

Mrs.  Carter  has  not  understood  Epictetus;  and  her  censure  is  mis- 
placed. It  is  true  that  "the  most  ignorant  persons  often  practise  what 
they  know  to  be  evil,"  as  she  truly  says.  But  she  might  have  said  more. 
It  is  also  true  that  persons,  who  are  not  ignorant,  often  do  what  they 
know  to  be  evil,  and  even  what  they  would  condemn  in  another,  at  least 
before  they  had  fallen  into  the  same  evil  themselves;  for  when  they 
have  done  what  they  know  to  be  wrong,  they  have  a  fellow-feeling  with 
others  who  are  bad  as  themselves.  Nor  does  he  say,  as  Mrs.  Carter 
seems  to  imply  that  he  does,  for  her  words  are  ambiguous,  that  they 
who  voluntarily  suffer  their  inclinations  to  blind  their  judgment  are  justi- 
fied by  following  them.  He  says  that  men  will  do  as  they  do,  so  long  as 
they  think  as  they  think.  He  only  traces  to  their  origin  the  bad  acts 
which  bad  men  do;  and  he  says  that  we  should  pity  them  and  try  to 
mend  them.  Now  the  best  man  in  the  world,  if  he  sees  the  origin  and 
direct  cause  of  bad  acts  in  men,  may  pity  them  for  their  wickedness, 
and  he  will  do  right.    He  will  pity,  and  still  he  will  punish  severely,  if 


54 


EPICTETUS 


the  interests  of  society  require  the  guilty  to  be  punished :  but  he  will  not 
punish  in  anger.  Epictetus  says  nothing  about  legal  penalties;  and  I 
assume  that  he  would  not  say  that  the  penalties  are  always  unjust,  if  I 
understand  his  principles.  His  discourse  is  to  this  effect,  as  the  title  tells 
us,  that  we  ought  not  to  be  angry  with  the  errors  of  others :  the  matter 
of  the  discourse  is  the  feeling  and  disposition  which  we  ought  to  have 
towards  those  who  do  wrong,  "because  they  are  mistaken  about  good 
arid  evil." 

He  does  not  discuss  the  question  of  the  origin  of  these  men's  mistake 
further  than  this :  men  think  that  a  thing  or  act  is  advantageous ;  and 
it  is  impossible  for  them  to  think  that  one  thing  is  advantageous  and  to 
desire  another  thing.  Their  error  is  in  their  opinion.  Then  he  tells  us  to 
show  them  their  error,  and  they  will  desist  from  their  errors.  He  is  not 
here  examining  the  way  of  showing  them  their  error ;  by  which  I  sup- 
pose that  he  means  convincing  them  of  their  error.  He  seems  to  admit 
that  it  may  not  be  possible  to  convince  them  of  their  errors ;  for  he  says, 
"if  they  do  not  see  their  errors,  they  have  nothing  superior  to  their  pres- 
ent opinion." 

This  is  the  plain  and  certain  meaning  of  Epictetus  which  Mrs.  Carter 
in  her  zeal  has  not  seen. 

*  The  conclusion  explains  what  precedes.  A  man  can  have  no  pain  in 
his  horns,  because  he  has  none.  A  man  can  not  be  vexed  about  the  loss 
of  a  thing  if  he  does  not  possess  it. 

*  That  is  obstinate,  as  this  animal  is  generally ;  and  sometimes  very 
obstinate.  The  meaning  then  is,  as  Schweighauser  says :  "a  man  should 
be  invincible,  not  with  a  kind  of  stupid  obstinacy  or  laziness  and  slow- 
ness in  moving  himself  like  an  ass,  but  he  should  be  invincible  through 
reason,  reflection,  meditation,  study,  and  diligence." 

* "  From  the  rustics  came  the  old  proverb,  for  when  they  commend 
a  man's  fidelity  and  goodness  they  say  he  is  a  man  with  whom  you  may 
play  the  game  with  the  fingers  in  the  dark."  Cicero,  "De  Officiis,"  iii.  19. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

HOW   WE   SHOULD   BEHAVE   TO   TYRANTS 

IF  a  man  possesses  any  superiority,  or  thinks  that  he  does, 
when  he  does  not,  such  a  man,  if  he  is  uninstructed,  will 
of  necessity  be  puffed  up  through  it.  For  instance,  the 
tyrant  says,  "I  am  master  of  all !"  And  what  can  you  do 
for  me?  Can  you  give  me  desire  which  shall  have  no  hin- 
drance ?  How  can  you  ?  Have  you  the  infallible  power  of 
avoiding  what  you  would  avoid?  Have  you  the  power  of 
moving  towards  an  object  without  error?  And  how  do  you 
possess  this  power  ?  Come,  when  you  are  in  a  ship,  do  you 
trust  to  yourself  or  to  the  helmsman?  And  when  you  are 
in  a  chariot,  to  whom  do  you  trust  but  to  the  driver  ?  And 
how  is  it  in  all  other  arts?  Just  the  same.  In  what  then 
lies  your  power?  "All  men  pay  respect  to  me."  Well,  I  also 
pay  respect  to  my  platter,  and  I  wash  it  and  wipe  it ;  and  for 
the  sake  of  my  oil  flask,  I  drive  a  peg  into  the  wall.  "Well 
then,  are  these  things  superior  to  me?"  No,  but  they  supply 
some  of  my  wants,  and  for  this  reason  I  take  care  of  them. 
Well,  do  I  not  attend  to  my  ass?  Do  I  not  wash  his  feet? 
Do  I  not  clean  him  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  every  man  has 
regard  to  himself,  and  to  you  just  the  same  as  he  has  regard 
to  his  ass?  For  who  has  regard  to  you  as  a  man?  Show 
me.  Who  wishes  to  become  like  you  ?  Who  imitates  you, 
as  he  imitates  Socrates  ?  "But  I  can  cut  off  your  head."  You 
say  right.  I  had  forgotten  that  I  must  have  regard  to  you, 
as  I  would  to  a  fever  and  the  bile,  and  raise  an  altar  to  you, 
as  there  is  at  Rome  an  altar  to  Fever. 

What  is  it  then  that  disturbs  and  terrifies  the  multitude?  is 
it  the  tyrant  and  his  guards ?  [By  no  means.]  I  hope  that 
it  is  not  so.  It  is  not  possible  that  what  is  by  nature  free  can 
be  disturbed  by  anything  else,  or  hindered  by  any  other  thing 
than  by  itself.  But  it  is  a  man's  own  opinions  which  disturb 
him :  for  when  the  tyrant  says  to  a  man,  "I  will  chain  your 
leg,"  he  who  values  his  leg  says,  "Do  not ;  have  pity :"  but 
he  who  values  his  own  will  says,  "If  it  appears  more  advan- 

55 


56  EPICTETUS 

tageous  to  you,  chain  it."  Do  you  not  care?  "I  do  not  care." 
I  will  show  you  that  I  am  master.  You  can  not  do  that. 
Zeus  has  set  me  free ;  do  you  think  that  he  intended  to  allow 
his  own  son  to  be  ashamed?  But  you  are  master  of  my 
carcase :  take  it.  "So  when  you  approach  me,  you  have  no 
regard  to  me  ?"  No,  but  I  have  regard  to  myself ;  and  if  you 
wish  me  to  say  that  I  have  regard  to  you  also,  I  tell  you  that 
I  have  the  same  regard  to  you  that  I  have  to  my  pipkin. 

This  is  not  a  perverse  self-regard,  for  the  animal  is  con- 
stituted so  as  to  do  all  things  for  itself.  For  even  the  sun 
does  all  things  for  itself ;  nay,  even  Zeus  himself.  But  when 
he  chooses  to  be  the  Giver  of  rain  and  the  Giver  of  fruits,  and 
the  Father  of  Gods  and  men,  you  see  that  he  can  not  obtain 
these  functions  and  these  names,  if  he  is  not  useful  to  man; 
and,  universally,  he  has  made  the  nature  of  the  rational 
animal  such  that  it  can  not  obtain  any  one  of  its  own  proper 
interests,  if  it  does  not  contribute  something  to  the  common 
interest.  In  this  manner  and  sense  it  is  not  unsociable  for  a 
man  to  do  everything  for  the  sake  of  himself.  For  what  do 
you  expect?  that  a  man  should  neglect  himself  and  his  own 
interest?  And  how  in  that  case  can  there  be  one  and  the 
same  principle  in  all  animals,  the  principle  of  attachment 
(regard)  to  themselves ? 

What  then  ?  when  absurd  notions  about  things  independ- 
ent of  our  will,  as  if  they  were  good  and  (or)  bad,  lie  at  the 
bottom  of  our  opinions,  we  must  of  necessity  pay  regard  to 
tyrants;  for  I  wish  that  men  would  pay  regard  to  tyrants 
only,  and  not  also  to  the  bedchamber  men.  How  is  it  that 
the  man  becomes  all  at  once  wise,  when  Caesar  has  made  him 
superintendent  of  the  close  stool  ?  How  is  it  that  we  say  im- 
mediately, "Felicion  spoke  sensibly  to  me."  I  wish  he  were 
ejected  from  the  bedchamber,  that  he  might  again  appear  to 
you  to  be  a  fool. 

Epaphroditus^  had  a  shoemaker  whom  he  sold  because  he 
was  good  for  nothing.  This  fellow  by  some  good  luck  was 
bought  by  one  of  Caesar's  men,  and  became  Caesar's  shoe- 
maker. You  should  have  seen  what  respect  Epaphroditus 
paid  to  him:  "How  does  the  good  Felicion  do,  I  pray?" 
Then  if  any  of  us  asked,  "What  is  master  (Epaphroditus) 
doing?"  the  answer  was,  "He  is  consulting  about  something 


DISCOURSES  57 

with  Felicion."  Had  he  not  sold  the  man  as  good  for  noth- 
ing? Who  then  made  him  wise  all  at  once?  This  is  an 
instance  of  valuing  something  else  than  the  things  which 
depend  on  the  will. 

Has  a  man  been  exalted  to  the  tribuneship?  All  who 
meet  him  offer  their  congratulations:  one  kisses  his  eyes, 
another  the  neck,  and  the  slaves  kiss  his  hands.^  He  goes  to 
his  house,  he  finds  torches  lighted.  He  ascends  the  Capitol : 
he  offers  a  sacrifice  on  the  occasion.  Now  who  ever  sacri- 
ficed for  having  had  good  desires  ?  for  having  acted  conform- 
ably to  nature?  For  in  fact  we  thank  the  gods  for  those 
things  in  which  we  place  our  good. 

A  person  was  talking  to  me  to-day  about  the  priesthood  of 
Augustus.*  I  say  to  him :  "Man,  let  the  thing  alone :  you 
will  spend  much  for  no  purpose."  But  he  replies,  "Those 
who  draw  up  agreements  will  write  my  name."  Do  you 
then  stand  by  those  who  read  them,  and  say  to  such  persons, 
"It  is  I  whose  name  is  written  there"  ?  And  if  you  can  now 
be  present  on  all  such  occasions,  what  will  you  do  when  you 
are  dead  ?  My  name  will  remain. — Write  it  on  a  stone,  and 
it  will  remain.  But  come,  what  remembrance  of  you  will 
there  be  beyond  Nicopolis? — But  I  shall  wear  a  crown  of 
gold. — If  you  desire  a  crown  at  all,  take  a  crown  of  roses  and 
put  it  on,  for  it  will  be  more  elegant  in  appearance. 


*Such  a  man  was  named  in  Greek  Koiroovirtji  in  Latin  "cubicu- 
larius,"  a  lord  of  the  bedchamber,  as  we  might  say.  Seneca,  "De  Con- 
stantia  Sapientis,"  speaks  "of  the  pride  of  the  nomenclator  (the  an- 
nouncer of  the  name),  of  the  arrogance  of  the  bedchamber  man." 

'  Once  the  master  of  Epictetus. 

•  Hand-kissing  was  in  those  times  of  tyranny  the  duty  of  a  slave,  not 
of  a  free  man.   This  servile  practice  still  exists  among  men  called  free. 

*  Casaubon,  in  a  learned  note  on  Suetonius,  "Augustus,"  c.  i8,  in- 
forms us  that  divine  honours  were  paid  to  Augustus  at  Nicopolis,  which 
town  he  founded  after  the  victory  at  Actium.  The  priesthood  of  Au- 
gustus at  Nicopolis  was  a  high  office,  and  the  priest  gave  his  name  to 
the  year ;  that  is,  when  it  was  intended  in  any  writing  to  fix  the  year, 
either  in  any  writing  which  related  to  public  matters,  or  in  instruments 
used  in  private  affairs,  the  name  of  the  priest  of  Augustus  was  used, 
and  this  was  also  the  practice  in  most  Greek  cities.  In  order  to  establish 
the  sense  of  this  passage,  Casaubon  changed  the  text  from  rd?  (poovdi 
into  TO.  (TVfKpQova.,  which  emendation  Schweighauser  has  admitted  into 
his  text 


CHAPTER  XX 

HOW  REASON  CONTEMPLATES  ITSELF 

EVERY  art  and  faculty  contemplates  certain  things 
especially.  When  then  it  is  itself  of  the  same  kind 
with  the  objects  which  it  contemplates,  it  must  of 
necessity  contemplate  itself  also:  but  when  it  is  of 
an  unlike  kind,  it  can  not  contemplate  itself.  For  instance, 
the  shoemaker's  art  is  employed  on  skins,  but  itself  is  entirely 
distinct  from  the  material  of  skins :  for  this  reason  it  does  not 
contemplate  itself.  Again,  the  grammarian's  art  is  em- 
ployed about  articulate  speech ;  is  then  the  art  also  articulate 
speech?  By  no  means.  For  this  reason  it  is  not  able  to 
contemplate  itself.  Now  reason,  for  what  purpose  has  it 
been  given  by  nature?  For  the  right  use  of  appearances. 
What  is  it  then  itself?  A  system  (combination)  of  certain 
appearances.  So  by  its  nature  it  has  the  faculty  of  contem- 
plating itself  also.  Again,  sound  sense,  for  the  contempla- 
tion of  what  things  does  it  belong  to  us  ?  Good  and  evil,  and 
things  which  are  neither.  What  is  it  then  itself?  Good. 
And  want  of  sense,  what  is  it  ?  Evil.  Do  you  see  then  that 
good  sense  necessarily  contemplates  both  itself  and  the  oppo- 
site ?  For  this  reason  it  is  the  chief  and  th6  first  work  of  a 
philosopher  to  examine  appearances,  and  to  distinguish  them 
and  to  admit  none  without  examination.  You  see  even  in 
the  matter  of  coin,  in  which  our  interest  appears  to  be  some- 
what concerned,  how  we  have  invented  an  art,  and  how  many 
means  the  assayer  uses  to  try  the  value  of  coin,  the  sight,  the 
touch,  the  smell,  and  lastly  the  hearing.  He  throws  the  coin 
(denarius)  down,  and  observes  the  sound,  and  he  is  not  con- 
tent with  its  sounding  once,  but  through  his  great  attention 
he  becomes  a  musician.  In  like  manner,  where  we  think  that 
to  be  mistaken  and  not  to  be  mistaken  make  a  great  differ- 
ence, there  we  apply  great  attention  to  discovering  the  things 
which  can  deceive.  But  in  the  matter  of  our  miserable 
ruling  faculty,  yawning  and  sleeping,  we  carelessly  admit 
every  appearance,  for  the  harm  is  not  noticed. 

58 


DISCOURSES  59 

When  then  you  would  know  how  careless  you  are  with 
respect  to  good  and  evil,  and  how  active  with  respect  to 
things  which  are  indifferent  (neither  good  nor  evil),  ob- 
serve how  you  feel  with  respect  to  being  deprived  of  the  sight 
of  the  eyes,  and  how  with  respect  to  being  deceived,  and  you 
will  discover  that  you  are  far  from  feeling  as  you  ought  to  do 
in  relation  to  good  and  evil.  But  this  is  a  matter  which  re- 
quires much  preparation,  and  much  labour  and  study.  Well 
then  do  you  expect  to  acquire  the  greatest  of  arts  with  small 
labour  ?  And  yet  the  chief  doctrine  of  philosophers  is  very 
brief.  If  you  would  know,  read  Zeno's^  writings  and  you 
will  see.  For  how  few  words  it  requires  to  say  that  man's 
end  (or  object)  is  to  follow  the  gods,  and  that  the  nature  of 
good  is  a  proper  use  of  appearances.  But  if  you  say  What 
is  God,  what  is  appearance,  and  what  is  particular  and  what 
is  universal^  nature  ?  then  indeed  many  words  are  necessary. 
If  then  Epicurus  should  come  and  say,  that  the  good  must  be 
in  the  body ;  in  this  case  also  many  words  become  necessary, 
and  we  must  be  taught  what  is  the  leading  principle  in  us, 
and  the  fundamental  and  the  substantial ;  and  as  it  is  not 
probable  that  the  good  of  a  snail  is  in  the  shell,  is  it  probable 
that  the  good  of  a  man  is  in  the  body?  But  you  yourself, 
Epicurus,  possess  something  better  than  this.  What  is  that 
in  you  which  deliberates,  what  is  that  which  examines  every 
thing,  what  is  that  which  forms  a  judgment  about  the  body 
itself,  that  it  is  the  principal  part?  and  why  do  you  light  your 
lamp  and  labour  for  us,  and  write  so  many  books  ?  is  it  that 
we  may  not  be  ignorant  of  the  truth,  who  we  are,  and  what 
we  are  with  respect  to  you?  Thus  the  discussion  requires 
many*  words. 

NOTES 

'  A  comparison  of  lib.  i.  chap,  i,  will  help  to  explain  this  chapter. 
Compare  also  lib.  i.  chap.  17. 

'  Zeno,  a  native  of  Citium,  in  the  island  of  Cyprus,  is  said  to  have 
come  when  he  was  young  to  Athens,  where  he  spent  the  rest  of  a  long 
life  in  the  study  and  teaching  of  Philosophy.  He  was  the  founder  of 
the  Stoic  sect,  and  a  man  respected  for  his  ability  and  high  character. 
He  wrote  many  philosophical  works.  Zeno  was  succeeded  in  his  school 
by  Cleanthes. 

*  Epictetus  never  attempts  to  say  what  God  is.  He  was  too  wise  to 
attempt  to  do  what  man  can  not  do.  But  man  does  attempt  to  do  it,  and 
only  shows  the  folly  of  his  attempts,  and,  I  think,  his  presumption  also. 

<  Epicurus  is  said  to  have  written  more  than  any  other  person,  as 


6o  EPICTETUS 

many  as  three  hundred  vohimes(i<'t'Arv5/c»oz,  rolls).  Chrysippus  was 
his  rival  in  this  respect.  For  if  Epicurus  wrote  anything,  Chrysippus 
vied  with  him  in  writing  as  much ;  and  for  this  reason  he  often  repeated 
himself,  because  he  did  not  read  over  what  he  had  written,  and  he  left 
his  writirgs  uncorrected  in  consequence  of  his  hurry. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

AGAINST   THOSE    WHO    WISH    TO   BE  ADMIRED 

WHEN  a  man  holds  his  proper  station  in  life,  he  does 
not  gape  after  things  beyond  it.  Man,  what  do 
you  wish  to  happen  to  you? 

I  am  satisfied  if  I  desire  and  avoid  conforma- 
bly to  nature,  if  I  employ  movements  towards  and  from  an 
object  as  I  am  by  nature  formed  to  do ;  and  purpose  and  de- 
sign and  assent." 

Why  then  do  you  strut  before  us  as  if  you  had  swallowed 
a  spit  ? 

''My  wish  has  always  been  that  those  who  meet  me 
should  admire  me,  and  those  who  follow  me  should  exclaim 
O  the  great  philosopher," 

Who  are  they  by  whom  you  wish  to  be  admired  ?  Are  they 
not  those  of  whom  you  are  used  to  say,  that  they  are  mad? 
Well  then  do  you  wish  to  be  admired  by  madmen  ? 


6l 


CHAPTER  XXII 

ON   PRAECOGNITIONS^ 

PRECOGNITIONS  are  common  to  all  men,  and  prae- 
cognition  is  not  contradictory  to  praecognition.  For 
who  of  us  does  not  assume  that  Good  is  useful  and 
eligible,  and  in  all  circumstances  that  we  ought  to 
follow  and  pursue  it  ?  And  who  of  us  does  not  assume  that 
Justice  is  beautiful  and  becoming?  When  then  does  the 
contradiction  arise  ?  It  arises  in  the  adaptation  of  the  prae- 
cognitions  to  the  particular  cases.  When  one  man  says,  "He 
has  done  well :  he  is  a  brave  man,"  and  another  says,  "Not 
so ;  but  he  has  acted  foolishly ;"  then  the  disputes  arise  among 
men.  This  is  the  dispute  among  the  Jews  and  the  Syrians 
and  the  Egyptians  and  the  Romans;  not  whether  holiness 
should  be  preferred  to  all  things  and  in  all  cases  should  be 
pursued,  but  whether  it  is  holy  to  eat  pig's  flesh  or  not  holy. 
You  will  find  this  dispute  also  between  Agamemnon  and 
Achilles  f  for  call  them  forth.  What  do  you  say,  Agamem- 
non? ought  not  that  to  be  done  which  is  proper  and  right? 
"Certainly."  Well,  what  do  you  say,  Achilles?  do  you  not 
admit  that  what  is  good  ought  to  be  done?  "I  do  most  cer- 
tainly." Adapt  your  praecognitions  then  to  the  present  mat- 
ter. Here  the  dispute  begins.  Agamemnon  says,  "I  ought 
not  to  give  up  Chryseis  to  her  father."  Achilles  says,  "You 
ought."  It  is  certain  that  one  of  the  two  makes  a'  wrong 
adaptation  of  the  praecognition  of  "ought"  or  "duty." 
Further,  Agamemnon  says,  "Then  if  I  ought  to  restore 
Chryseis,  it  is  fit  that  I  take  his  prize  from  some  of  you." 
Achilles  replies,  "Would  you  then  take  her  whom  I  love?" 
"Yes,  her  whom  you  love."  "Must  I  then  be  the  only  man 
who  goes  without  a  prize  ?  and  must  I  be  the  only  man  who 
has  no  prize?"    Thus  the  dispute  begins.^ 

What  then  is  education?  Education  is  the  learning  how 
to  adapt  the  natural  praecognitions  to  the  particular  things 
conformably  to  nature;  and  then  to  distinguish  that  of 
things  some  are  in  our  power,  but  others  are  not:  in  our 

62 


DISCOURSES  63 

power  are  will  and  all  acts  which  depend  on  the  will ;  things 
not  in  our  power  are  the  body,  the  parts  of  the  body,  posses- 
sions, parents,  brothers,  children,  country  and  generally, 
all  with  whom  we  live  in  society.  In  what  then  should  we 
place  the  good  ?  To  what  kind  of  things  {ova-iqt)  shall  we 
adapt  it?  To  the  things  which  are  in  our  power?  Is  not 
health  then  a  good  thing,  and  soundness  of  limb,  and  life? 
and  are  not  children  and  parents  and  country?  Who  will 
tolerate  you  if  you  deny  this? 

Let  us  then  transfer  the  notion  of  good  to  these  things. 
Is  it  possible  then,  when  a  man  sustains  damage  and  does 
not  obtain  good  things,  that  he  can  be  happy  ?  It  is  not  pos- 
sible. And  can  he  maintain  towards  society  a  proper  beha- 
viour? He  can  not.  For  I  am  naturally  formed  to  look 
after  my  own  interest.  If  it  is  my  interest  to  have  an  estate 
in  land,  it  is  my  interest  also  to  take  it  from  my  neighbour. 
If  it  is  my  interest  to  have  a  garment,  it  is  my  interest  also  to 
steal  it  from  the  bath.*  This  is  the  origin  of  wars,  civil 
commotions,  tyrannies,  conspiracies.  And  how  shall  I  be 
still  able  to  maintain  my  duty  towards  Zeus  ?  for  if  I  sustain 
damage  and  am  unlucky,  he  takes  no  care  of  me ;  and  what 
is  he  to  me  if  he  can  not  help  me ;  and  further,  what  is  he  to 
me  if  he  allows  me  to  be  in  the  condition  in  which  I  am  ?  I 
now  begin  to  hate  him.  Why  then  do  we  build  temples, 
why  set  up  statues  to  Zeus,  as  well  as  to  evil  daemons,  such 
as  to  Fever ;  and  how  is  Zeus  the  Saviour,  and  how  the  giver 
of  rain,  and  the  giver  of  fruits?  And  in  truth  if  we  place 
the  nature  of  Good  in  any  such  things,  all  this  follows. 

What  should  we  do  then?  This  is  the  inquiry  of  the  true 
philosopher  who  is  in  labour.  Now  I  do  not  see  what  the 
Good  is  nor  the  Bad.  Am  I  not  mad  ?  Yes.  But  suppose 
that  I  place  the  good  somewhere  among  the  things  which 
depend  on  the  will :  all  will  laugh  at  me.  There  will  come 
some  greyhead  wearing  many  gold  rings  on  his  fingers,  and 
he  will  shake  his  head  and  say,  "Hear,  my  child.  It  is  right 
that  you  should  philosophize;  but  you  ought  to  have  some 
brains  also :  all  this  that  you  are  doing  is  silly.  You  learn 
the  syllogism  from  philosophers ;  but  you  know  how  to  act 
better  than  philosophers  do." — Man,  why  then  do  you  blame 
me,  if  I  know?     What  shall  I  say  to  this  slave?     If  I  am 


64  EPICTETUS 

silent,  he  will  burst.  I  must  speak  in  this  way:  "Excuse 
me,  as  you  would  excuse  lovers ;  I  am  not  my  own  master ; 
I  am  mad." 

NOTES 

^  Praecognitions  {itpoXrjipEtz)  is  translated  Praecognita  by  John 
Smith,  Select  Discourses,^  p.  4.  Cicero  says  (Topica,  7):  "Notionem 
appello  quod  Graeci  turn  evvoiav,  turn  7Cp6A.rfrf>iv  dicunt.  Ea  est  insita 
et  ante  percepta  cujusque  formas  cognitio,  enodationis  indigens."  In 
the  De  Natura  Deorum  (i.  16)  he  says:  "Quae  est  enim  gens  aut  quod 
genus  hominum,  quod  non  habeat  sine  doctrina  anticipationem  quan- 
dam  deorum,  quam  appellat  TtpoXrftpiv  Epicurus  ?  id  est,  anteceptam 
animo  rei  quandam  informationem,  sine  qua  nee  intelligi  quidquam 
nee  quaeri  nee  disputari  potest."  Epicurus,  as^  Cicero  says  in  the  follow  - 
ing  chapter  (17),  was  the  first  who  used  TtpoXr^ipii  m  this  sense,  which 
Cicero  applies  to  what  he  calls  the  ingrafted  or  rather  innate  cognitions 
of  the  existence  of  gods,  and  these  cognitions  he  supposes  to  be  uni- 
versal ;  but  whether  this  is  so  or  not,  I  do  not  know.  See  i.  c.  2;  Tuscul. 
i.  24 ;  De  Fin.  iii.  6,  and  TtpoXTftpn  in  iv.  8.  6. 

"  Horace,  Epp.  i.  2. 

■  Iliad,  i.  The  quarrel  of  Achilles  and  Agamemnon  about  giving  up 
Chryseis  to  her  father. 

*  The  bath  was  a  place  of  common  resort,  where  a  thief  had  the  op- 
portunity of  carrying  off  a  bather's  clothes.  From  men's  desires  to  have 
what  they  have  not,  and  do  not  choose  to  labour  for,  spring  the  disorders 
of  society,  as  it  is  said  in  the  epistle  of  James,  c.  iv.,  v.  i,  to  which  Mrs. 
Carter  refers. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

AGAINST  EPICURUS 

EVEN  Epicurus  perceives  that  we  are  by  nature  social, 
but  having  once  placed  our  good  in  the  husk  he  is  no 
longer  able  to  say  anything  else.  For  on  the  other 
hand  he  strongly  maintains  this,  that  we  ought  not 
to  admire  nor  to  accept  any  thing  which  is  detached  from 
the  nature  of  good;  and  he  is  right  in  maintaining  this. 
How  then  are  we  [suspicious],  if  we  have  no  natural  affec- 
tion to  our  children  ?  Why  do  you  advise  the  wise  man  not 
to  bring  up  children?  Why  are  you  afraid  that  he  may 
thus  fall  into  trouble?  For  does  he  fall  into  trouble  on  ac- 
count of  the  mouse  which  is  nurtured  in  the  house?  What 
does  he  care  if  a  little  mouse  in  the  house  makes  lamenta- 
tion to  him?  But  Epicurus  knows  that  if  once  a  child  is 
bom,  it  is  no  longer  in  our  power  not  to  love  it  nor  care 
about  it.  For  this  reason,  Epicurus  says,  that  a  man  who 
has  any  sense  also  does  not  engage  in  political  matters ;  for 
he  knows  what  a  man  must  do  who  is  engaged  in  such 
things;  for  indeed,  if  you  intend  to  behave  among  men  as 
you  would  among  a  swarm  of  flies,  what  hinders  you  ?  But 
Epicurus,  who  knows  this,  ventures  to  say  that  we  should 
not  bring  up  children.  But  a  sheep  does  not  desert  its  own 
offspring,  nor  yet  a  wolf ;  and  shall  a  man  desert  his  child  ? 
What  do  you  mean  ?  that  we  should  be  as  silly  as  sheep  ?  but 
not  even  do  they  desert  their  offspring:  or  as  savage  as 
wolves,  but  not  even  do  wolves  desert  their  young.  Well, 
who  would  follow  your  advice,  if  he  saw  his  child  weeping 
after  falling  on  the  ground  ?  For  my  part  I  think  that  even 
if  your  mother  and  your  father  had  been  told  by  an  oracle, 
that  you  would  say  what  you  have  said,  they  would  not  have 
cast  you  away. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

HOW  WE  SHOULD  STRUGGLE  WITH  CIRCUMSTANCES 

IT  is  circumstances  (difficulties)  that  show  what  men 
are.  Therefore  when  a  difficulty  falls  upon  you,  re- 
member that  God,  like  a  trainer  of  wrestlers,  has 
matched  you  with  a  rough  young  man.  For  what  pur- 
pose? you  may  say.  Why  that  you  may  become  an  Olym- 
pic conqueror ;  but  it  is  not  accomplished  without  sweat.  In 
my  opinion  no  man  has  had  a  more  profitable  difficulty  than 
you  have  had,  if  you  choose  to  make  use  of  it  as  an  ath- 
lete would  deal  with  a  young  antagonist.  We  are  now 
sending  a  scout  to  Rome  ;^  but  no  man  sends  a  cowardly 
scout,  who,  if  he  only  hears  a  noise  and  sees  a  shadow  any 
where,  comes  running  back  in  terror  and  reports  that  the 
enemy  is  close  at  hand.  So  now  if  you  should  come  and 
tell  us,  Fearful  is  the  state  of  affairs  at  Rome,  terrible  is 
death,  terrible  is  exile;  terrible  is  calumny;  terrible  is  pov- 
erty; fly,  my  friends;  the  enemy  is  near — we  shall  answer. 
Be  gone,  prophesy  for  yourself;  we  have  committed  only 
one  fault,  that  we  sent  such  a  scout. 

Diogenes,^  who  was  sent  as  a  scout  before  you,  made  a 
different  report  to  us.  He  says  that  death  is  no  evil,  for 
neither  is  it  base:  he  says  that  fame  (reputation)  is  the 
noise  of  madmen.  And  what  has  this  spy  said  about  pain, 
about  pleasure,  and  about  poverty?  He  says  that  to  be 
naked  is  better  than  any  purple  robe,  and  to  sleep  on  the 
bare  ground  is  the  softest  bed;  and  he  gives  as  a  proof  of 
each  thing  that  he  affirms  his  own  courage,  his  tranquillity, 
his  freedom,  and  the  healthy  appearance,  and  compactness 
of  his  body.  "There  is  no  enemy  near,"  he  says;  "all  is 
peace."  How  so,  Diogenes?  "See,"  he  replies,  "if  I  am 
struck,  if  I  have  been  wounded,  if  I  have  fled  from  any  man.'* 
This  is  what  a  scout  ought  to  be.  But  you  come  to  us  and 
tell  us  one  thing  after  another.  Will  you  not  go  back,  and 
you  will  see  clearer  when  you  have  laid  aside  fear  ? 

What  then  shall  I  do  ?     What  do  you  do  when  you  leave  a 

66 


B  ^ 

s    .5 


DISCOURSES  67 

ship?  Do  you  take  away  the  helm  or  the  oars?  What 
then  do  you  take  away  ?  You  take  what  is  your  own,  your 
bottle  and  your  wallet;  and  now  if  you  think  of  what  is 
your  own,  you  will  never  claim  what  belongs  to  others. 
The  emperor  (Domitian)  says,  "Lay  aside  your  laticlave.^" 
See,  I  put  on  the  angnsticlave.  "Lay  aside  this  also."  See, 
I  have  only  my  toga.  "Lay  aside  your  toga."  See,  I  am  now 
naked.  "But  you  still  raise  my  envy."  Take  then  all  my 
poor  body:  when,  at  a  man's  command,  I  can  throw  away 
my  poor  body,  do  I  still  fear  him  ? 

But  a  certain  person  will  not  leave  to  me  the  succession 
to  his  estate.  What  then?  had  I  forgotten  that  not  one  of 
these  things  was  mine.  How  then  do  we  call  them  mine? 
Just  as  we  call  the  bed  in  the  inn.  If  then  the  innkeeper 
at  his  death  leaves  you  the  beds;  all  well;  but  if  he  leaves 
them  to  another,  he  will  have  them,  and  you  will  seek  an- 
other bed.  If  then  you  shall  not  find  one,  you  will  sleep  on 
the  grounjl :  only  sleep  with  a  good  will  and  snore,  and  re- 
member that  tragedies  have  their  place  among  the  rich  and 
kings  and  tyrants,  but  no  poor  man  fills  a  part  in  a  tragedy, 
except  as  one  of  the  Chorus.  Kings  indeed  commence  with 
prosperity :  "ornament  the  palace  with  garlands" :  then 
about  the  third  or  fourth  act  they  call  out,  "Oh,  Cithseron,* 
why  didst  thou  receive  me"  ?  Slave,  where  are  the  crowns, 
where  the  diadem?  The  guards  help  thee  not  at  all. 
When  then  you  approach  any  of  these  persons,  remember 
this  that  you  are  approaching  a  tragedian,  not  the  actor,  but 
CEdipus  himself.  But  you  say,  such  a  man  is  happy ;  for 
he  walks  about  with  many,  and  I  also  place  myself  with  the 
manyandwalk  about  with  many.  In  sum  remember  this :  the 
door  is  open  f  be  not  more  timid  than  little  children,  but  as 
they  say,  when  the  thing  does  not  please  them,  "I  will  play 
no  longer,"  so  do  you,  when  things  seem  to  you  of  such  a 
kind,  say  "I  will  no  longer  play,"  and  be  gone :  but  if  you 
stay,  do  not  complain. 

NOTES 

•  In  the  time  of  Domitian  philosophers  were  banished  from  Rome  and 
Italy  by  a  Senatiisconsultum  (Sueton.  Domitian,  c.  10;  Dion,  67,  c. 
13),  and  at  that  time  Epictetus.  as  Gellius  says  (xv.  11).  went  from 
Rome  to  Nicopolis  in  Epirus,  where  he  opened  a  school.    We  may  sup- 


68  EPICTETUS 

pose  that  Epictetus  is  here  speaking  of  some  person  who  had  gone  from 
Nicopolis  to  Rome  to  inquire  about  the  state  of  affairs  there  under  the 
cruel  tyrant  Domitian.    (Schweighauser.) 

"  Diogenes  was  brought  to  King  Philip  after  the  battle  of  Chaeronea 
as  a  spy  (iii.  22,  24).  Plutarch  in  the  treatise,  Quomodo  assentator  ab 
amico  dignoscatur,  c.  30,  states  that  when  Philip  asked  Diogenes  if  he 
was  a  spy,  he  replied,  "Certainly  I  am  a  spy,  Philip,  of  your  want  of 
judgment  and  of  your  folly,  which  lead  you  without  any  necessity  to 
put  to  the  hazard  your  kingdom  and  your  life  in  one  single  hour." 

•  The  garment  with  the  broad  border,  the  laticlave,  was  the  dress  of  a 
senator;  the  garment  with  the  narrow  border,  the  angusticlave,  was  the 
dress  of  a  man  of  the  equestrian  order. 

*The  exclamation  of  CEdipus  in  the  CEdipus  Tyrannus  of  Sopho- 
cles, V.  1391. 

*  This  means  "you  can  die  when  you  please."  Comp.  i.  c.  9.  The 
power  of  dying  when  you  please  is  named  by  Plinius  (N.  H.  ii.  c.  7) 
the  best  thing  that  God  has  given  to  man  amidst  all  the  sufferings  of 
life.    Horace,  Epp.  ii.  2,  213, — 

"  Vivere  si  recte  nescis,  decede  peritis : 
Lusisti  satis,  edisti  satis  atque  bibisti; 
Tempus  abire  tibi." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

ON   THE   SAME   SUBJECT 

IF  these  things  are  true,  and  if  we  are  not  silly,  and  are 
not  acting  hypocritically  when  we  say  that  the  good  of 
man  is  in  the  will,  and  the  evil  too,  and  that  every- 
thing else  does  not  concern  us,  why  are  we  still  dis- 
turbed, why  are  we  still  afraid?  The  things  about  which 
we  have  been  busied  are  in  no  man's  power :  and  the  things 
which  are  in  the  power  of  others,  we  care  not  for.  What 
kind  of  trouble  have  we  still? 

"But  give  me  directions."  Why  should  I  give  you  direc- 
tions? has  not  Zeus  given  you  directions?  Has  he  not 
given  to  you  what  is  your  own  free  from  hindrance  and 
free  from  impediment,  and  what  is  not  your  own  subject 
to  hindrance  and  impediment  ?  What  directions  then,  what 
kind  of  orders  did  you  bring  when  you  came  from  him? 
Keep  by  every  means  what  is  your  own;  do  not  desire  what 
belongs  to  others.  Fidelity  (integrity)  is  your  own,  virtu- 
ous shame  is  your  own ;  who  then  can  take  these  things  from 
you?  who  else  than  yourself  will  hinder  you  from  using 
them?  But  how  do  you  act?  when  you  seek  what  is  not 
your  own,  you  lose  that  which  is  your  own.  Having  such 
promptings  and  commands  from  Zeus,  what  kind  do  you 
still  ask  from  me?  Am  I  more  powerful  than  he,  am  I 
more  worthy  of  confidence?  But  if  you  observe  these,  do 
you  want  any  others  besides?  Well,  but  he  has  not  given 
these  orders,  you  will  say.  Produce  your  praecognitions 
{itpoXif^Eii),  produce  the  proofs  of  philosophers,  produce 
what  you  have  often  heard,  and  produce  what  you  have  said 
yourself,  produce  what  you  have  read,  produce  what  you 
have  meditated  on;  and  you  will  then  see  that  all  these 
things  are  from  God.  "How  long  then  is  it  fit  to  observe 
these  precepts  from  God,  and  not  to  break  up  the  play  ?"  As 
long  as  the  play  is  continued  with  propriety.  In  the  Sa- 
turnalia^ a  king  is  chosen  by  lot,  for  it  has  been  the  custom 
to  play  at  this  game.   The  king  commands :   "Do  you  drink, 

69 


70  EPICTETUS 

Do  you  mix  wine  with  me,  Do  you  sing,  Do  you  go,  Do  you 
come."  I  obey  that  the  game  may  not  be  broken  up  through 
me. — But  if  he  says,  "Think  that  you  are  in  evil  pUght:"  I 
answer,  I  do  not  think  so ;  and  who  will  compel  me  to  think 
so?  Further,  we  agreed  to  play  Agamemnon  and  Achilles. 
He  who  is  appointed  to  play  Agamemnon  says  to  me,  "Go  to 
Achilles  and  tear  from  him  Briseis."  I  go.  He  says,  "Come," 
and  I  come. 

For  as  we  behave  in  the  matter  of  hypothetical  arguments, 
so  ought  we  to  do  in  life.  Suppose  it  to  be  night.  I  sup- 
pose that  it  is  night.  Well  then ;  is  it  day  ?  No,  for  I  ad- 
mitted the  hypothesis  that  it  was  night.  Suppose  that  you 
think  that  it  is  night?  Suppose  that  I  do.  But  also  think 
that  it  is  night.  That  is  not  consistent  with  the  hypothesis. 
So  in  this  case  also :  Suppose  that  you  are  unfortunate. 
Well,  suppose  so.  Are  you  then  unhappy?  Yes.  Well 
then  are  you  troubled  with  an  unfavourable  daemon  (for- 
tune) ?  Yes.  But  think  also  that  you  are  in  misery.  This 
is  not  consistent  with  the  hypothesis:  and  another  (Zeus) 
forbids  me  to  think  so. 

How  long  then  must  we  obey  such  orders  ?  As  long  as  it 
is  profitable;  and  this  means  as  long  as  I  maintain  that  which 
is  becoming  and  consistent.  Further,  some  men  are  sour 
and  of  bad  temper,  and  they  say,  "I  can  not  sup  with  this 
man  to  be  obliged  to  hear  him  telling  daily  how  he  fought  in 
Mysia" :  "I  told  you,  brother,  how  I  ascended  the  hill :  then 
I  began  to  be  besieged  again."  But  another  says,  "I  prefer 
to  get  my  supper  and  to  hear  him  talk  as  much  as  he  likes." 
And  do  you  compare  these  estimates  (judgments)  :  only  do 
nothing  in  a  depressed  mood,  nor  as  one  afflicted,  nor  as 
thinking  that  you  are  in  misery,  for  no  man  compels  you  to 
that. — Has  it  smoked  in  the  chamber?  If  the  smoke  is 
moderate,  I  will  stay ;  if  it  is  excessive ;  I  go  out :  for  you 
must  always  remember  this  and  hold  it  fast,  that  the  door  is 
open. — Well,  but  you  say  to  me,  "Do  not  live  in  Nicopolis." 
I  will  not  live  there.  "Nor  in  Athens."  I  will  not  live  in 
Athens.  "Nor  in  Rome."  I  will  not  live  in  Rome.  "Live  in 
Gyarus."^  I  will  live  in  Gyarus,  but  it  seems  like  a  great 
smoke  to  live  in  Gyarus ;  and  I  depart  to  the  place  where  no 
man  will  hinder  me  from  living,  for  that  dwelling  place  is 


DISCOURSES  71 

open  to  all ;  and  as  to  the  last  garment,  that  is  the  poor  body, 
no  one  has  any  power  over  me  beyond  this.  This  was  the 
reason  why  Demetrius^  said  to  Nero,  "You  threaten  me 
with  death,  but  nature  threatens  you."  If  I  set  my  admira- 
tion on  the  poor  body,  I  have  given  myself  up  to  be  a  slave : 
if  on  my  little  possessions,  I  also  make  myself  a  slave :  for  I 
immediately  make  it  plain  with  what  I  may  be  caught;  as 
if  the  snake  draws  in  his  head,  I  tell  you  to  strike  that  part 
of  him  which  he  guards ;  and  do  you  be  assured  that  what- 
ever part  you  choose  to  guard,  Ihat  part  your  master  will 
attack.  Remembering  this  whom  will  you  still  flatter  or 
fear? 

"But  I  should  like  to  sit  where  the  Senators  sit."^  Do  you 
see  that  you  are  putting  yourself  in  straits,  you  are  squeez- 
ing yourself.  "How  then  shall  I  see  well  in  any  other  way  in 
the  amphitheatre?"  Man,  do  not  be  a  spectator  at  all;  and 
you  will  not  be  squeezed.  Why  do  you  give  yourself 
trouble?  Or  wait  a  little,  and  when  the  spectacle  is  over, 
seat  yourself  in  the  place  reserved  for  the  Senators  and  sun 
yourself.  For  remember  this  general  truth,  that  it  is  we 
who  squeeze  ourselves,  who  put  ourselves  in  straits;  that  is 
our  opinions  squeeze  us  and  put  us  in  straits.  For  what  is 
it  to  be  reviled  ?  Stand  by  a  stone  and  revile  it ;  and  what 
will  you  gain?  If  then  a  man  listens  like  a  stone,  what 
profit  is  there  to  the  reviler  ?  But  if  the  reviler  has  as  a  step- 
ping-stone (or  ladder)  the  weakness  of  him  who  is  reviled, 
then  he  accomplishes  something.  "Strip  him."  What  do 
you  mean  by  him?  "Lay  hold  of  his  garment,  strip  it  off.  I 
have  insulted  you."    Much  good  may  it  do  you. 

This  was  the  practice  of  Socrates:  this  was  the  reason 
why  he  always  had  one  face.  But  we  choose  to  practise  and^ 
study  any  thing  rather  than  the  means  by  which  we  shall  be 
unimpeded  and  free.  You  say.  Philosophers  talk  para- 
doxes.*^ But  are  there  no  paradoxes  in  the  other  arts  ?  and 
what  is  more  paradoxical  than  to  puncture  a  man's  eye  in 
order  that  he  may  see?  If  any  one  said  this  to  a  man  igno- 
rant of  the  surgical  art,  would  he  not  ridicule  the  speaker? 
Where  is  the  wonder  then  if  in  philosophy  also  many  things 
which  are  true  appear  paradoxical  to  the  inexperienced  ? 


72      .  EPICTETUS 

*  NOTES 

*A  festival  at  Rome  in  December,  a  season  of  jollity  and  license 
(Livy,  xxii.  i).  Compare  the  passage  in  Tacitus,  Ann.  xiii.  15,  in  which 
Nero  is  chosen  by  lot  to  be  king :  and  Seneca,  De  Constant.  Sapient,  c. 
12,  "lUi  (pueri)  inter  ipsos  magistratus  gerunt,  et  prsetextam  fascesque 
ac  tribunal  imitantur." 

■     *  Gyarus  or  Gyara  a  wretched  island   in  the  /Egean  sea,   to  which 
criminals  were  sent  under  the  empire  at  Rome.   Juvenal,  Sat.  i.  TZ- 

•  Demetrius  was  a  Cynic  philosopher,  of  whom  Seneca  says :  "He  was 
in  my  opinion  a  great  man,  even  if  he  is  compared  with  the  greatest." 
One  of  his  sayings  was :  "You  gain  more  by  possessing  a  few  precepts 
of  philosophy,  if  you  have  them  ready  and  use  them,  than  by  learning 
many  if  you  have  them  not  at  hand."  Seneca  often  mentions  Demetrius. 
The  saying  in  the  text  is  also  attributed  to  Anaxagoras  (Life  by  Di- 
ogenes Laertius)  and  to  Socrates  by  Xenophon  (Apologia,  27). 

*  At  Rome,  and  probably  in  other  towns,  there  were  seats  reserved  for 
the  different  classes  of  men  at  the  public  spectacles. 

"Paradoxes  (7ra/od5o|a),  "things  contrary  to  opinion,"  are  contrasted 
with  paralogies  {xapaXoya),  "things  contrary  to  reason."  Cicero 
says  (Prooemium  to  his  Paradoxes),  that  paradoxes  are  "something 
which  cause  surprise  and  contradict  common  opinion;"  and  in  an- 
other place  he  says  that  the  Romans  gave  the  name  of  "admirabilia"  to 
the  Stoic  paradoxes. — The  puncture  of  the  eye  is  the  operation  for  cat- 
aract 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

WHAT  THE  LAW  OF  LIFE  IS 

WHEN  a  person  was  reading  hypothetical  argu- 
ments, Epictetus  said,  This  also  is  an  hypothet- 
ical law  that  we  must  accept  what  follows  from 
the  hypothesis.  But  much  before  this  law  is  the 
'aw  of  life,  that  we  must  act  conformably  to  nature.  For 
if  in  every  matter  and  circumstance  we  wish  to  observe  what 
is  natural,  it  is  plain  that  in  every  thing  we  ought  to  make 
it  our  aim  that  neither  that  which  is  consequent  shall  escape 
us,  and  that  we  do  not  admit  the  contradictory.  First  then 
philosophers  exercise  us  in  theory^  (contemplation of  things), 
which  is  easier;  and  then  next  they  lead  us  to  the  more 
difficult  things ;  for  in  theory,  there  is  nothing  which  draws 
us  away  from  following  what  is  taught;  but  in  the  mat- 
ters of  life,  many  are  the  things  which  distract  us.  He  is 
ridiculous  then  who  says  that  he  wishes  to  begin  with  the 
matters  of  real  life,  for  it  is  not  easy  to  begin  with  the  more 
difficult  things ;  and  we  ought  to  employ  this  fact  as  an  argu- 
ment to  those  parents  who  are  vexed  at  their  children  learn- 
ing philosophy:  Am  I  doing  wrong  then  my  father,  and 
do  I  not  know  what  is  suitable  to  me  and  becoming?  If 
indeed  this  can  neither  be  learned  nor  taught,  why  do  you 
blame  me?  but  if  it  can  be  taught,  teach  me;  and  if  you  can 
not,  allow  me  to  learn  from  those  who  say  that  they  know 
how  to  teach.  For  what  do  you  think  ?  do  you  suppose  that 
I  voluntarily  fall  into  evil  and  miss  the  good?  I  hope  that 
it  may  not  be  so.  What  is  then  the  cause  of  my  doing 
wrong  ?  Ignorance.  Do  you  not  choose  then  that  I  should 
get  rid  of  my  ignorance?  Who  was  ever  taught  by  anger 
the  art  of  a  pilot  or  music?  Do  you  think  that  by  means 
of  your  anger  I  shall  learn  the  art  of  life?  He  only  is  al- 
lowed to  speak  in  this  way  who  has  shown  such  an  inten- 
tion.2  But  if  a  man  only  intending  to  make  a  display  at  a 
banquet  and  to  show  that  he  is  acquainted  with  hypothetical 
arguments  reads  them  and  attends  the  philosophers,  what 

^  73 


74  EPICTETUS 

Other  object  has  he  than  that  some  man  of  senatorial  rank 
who  sits  by  him  may  admire?  For  there  (at  Rome)  are 
the  really  great  materials  (opportunities),  and  the  riches 
here  (at  Nicopolis)  appear  to  be  trifles  there.  This  is  the 
reason  why  it  is  difficult  for  a  man  to  be  master  of  the  ap- 
pearances, where  the  things  which  disturb  the  judgment  are 
great.  I  know  a  certain  person  who  complained,  as  he  em- 
braced the  knees  of  Epaphroditus,  that  he  had  only  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  times  ten  thousand  denarii^  remaining. 
What  then  did  Epaphroditus  do  ?  Did  he  laugh  at  him,  as 
we  slaves  of  Epaphroditus  did  ?  No,  but  he  cried  out  with 
amazement,  "Poor  man,  how  then  did  you  keep  silence,  how 
did  you  endure  it?" 

When  Epictetus  had  reproved  (called)  the  person  who 
was  reading  the  hypothetical  arguments,  and  the  teacher 
who  had  suggested  the  reading  was  laughing  at  the  reader, 
Epictetus  said  to  the  teacher,  "You  are  laughing  at  your- 
self :  you  did  not  prepare  the  young  man  nor  did  you  ascer- 
tain whether  he  was  able  to  understand  these  matters;  but 
perhaps  you  are  only  employing  him  as  a  reader."  Well 
then  said  Epictetus,  if  a  man  has  not  ability  enough  to  un- 
derstand a  complex  (syllogism),  do  we  trust  him  in  giving 
praise,  do  we  trust  him  in  giving  blame,  do  we  allow  that 
he  is  able  to  form  a  judgment  about  good  or  bad?  and  if 
such  a  man  blames  any  one,  does  the  man  care  for  the 
blame?  and  if  he  praises  any  one,  is  the  man  elated,  when  in 
such  small  matters  as  an  hypothetical  syllogism  he  who 
praises  can  not  see  what  is  consequent  on  the  hypothesis  ? 

This  then  is  the  beginning  of  philosophy,  a  man's  percep- 
tion of  the  state  of  his  ruling  faculty ;  for  when  a  man  knows 
that  it  is  weak,  then  he  will  not  employ  it  on  things  of  the 
greatest  difficulty.  But  at  present,  if  men  can  not  swallow 
even  a  morsel,  they  buy  whole  volumes  and  attempt  to  de- 
vour them ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  they  vomit  them  up 
or  suffer  indigestion :  and  then  come  gripings,  defluxes,  and 
fevers.'*  Such  men  ought  to  consider  what  their  ability 
is.  In  theory  it  is  easy  to  convince  an  ignorant  person; 
but  in  the  affairs  of  real  life  no  one  offers  himself  to  be  con- 
vinced, and  we  hate  the  man  who  has  convinced  us.     But 


DISCOURSES  75 

Socrates  advised  us  not  to  live  a  life  which  is  not  subjected 
to  examination. 

NOTKS 

*This  is  a  profound  and  useful  remark  of  Epictetus.  General  prin- 
ciples are  most  easily  understood  and  accepted.  The  difficulty  is  in  the 
application  of  them.  What  is  more  easy,  for  example,  than  to  under- 
stand general  principles  of  law  which  are  true  and  good  ?  But  in  practice 
cases  are  presented  to  us  which  as  Bacon  says,  are  "immersed  in  mat- 
ter;" and  it  is  this  matter  which  makes  the  difficulty  of  applying  the 
principles,  and  requires  the  ability  and  study  of  an  experienced  man.  It 
is  easy,  and  it  is  right,  to  teach  the  young  the  general  principles  of  the 
rules  of  life;  but  the  difficulty  of  applying  them  is  that  in  which  the 
young  and  the  old  too  often  fail.  So  if  you  ask  whether  virtue  can  be 
taught,  the  answer  is  that  the  rules  for  a  virtuous  life  can  be  delivered; 
but  the  application  of  the  rules  is  the  difficulty,  as  teachers  of  religion 
and  morality  know  well,  if  they  are  fit  to  teach.  If  they  do  not  know 
this  truth,  they  are  neither  fit  to  teach  the  rules,  nor  to  lead  the  way  to 
the  practice  of  them  by  the  only  method  which  is  possible;  and  this 
method  is  by  their  own  example,  assisted  by  the  example  of  those  who 
direct  the  education  of  youth,  and  of  those  with  whom  young  persons 
live. 

*  "Such  an  intention"  appears  to  mean  "the  intention  of  learning." 
"The  son  alone  can  say  this  to  his  father,  when  the  son  studies  philoso- 
phy for  the  purpose  of  living  a  good  life,  and  not  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
play."— Wolf. 

*  This  was  a  large  sum.  He  is  speaking  of  drachmas,  or  of  the  Roman 
equivalents  denarii.  In  Roman  language  the  amount  would  be  briefly  ex- 
pressed by  "sexagies  centena  millia  H.  S.,"  or  simply  by  "sexagies." 

*  Seneca,  "De  Tranquillitate  animi,"  says :  "What  is  the  use  of  count- 
less books  and  libraries,  when  the  owner  scarcely  reads  in  his  whole  life 
the  tables  of  contents?  The  number  only  confuses  a  learner,  does  not 
instruct  him.  It  is  much  better  to  give  yourself  up  to  a  few  authors  than 
to  wander  through  many." 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

IN  HOW  MANY  WAYS  APPEARANCES  EXIST,  AND  WHAT  AIDS 
WE    SHOULD    PROVIDE    AGAINST    THEM 

APPEARANCES  are  to  us  in  four  ways:  for  either 
things  appear  as  they  are;  or  they  are  not,  and  do 
not  even  appear  to  be;  or  they  are,  and  do  not  ap- 
pear to  be;  or  they  are  not,  and  yet  appear  to  be. 
Further,  in  all  these  cases  to  form  a  right  judgment  (to  hit 
the  mark)  is  the  office  of  an  educated  man.  But  whatever 
it  is  that  annoys  (troubles)  us,  to  that  we  ought  to  apply 
a  remedy.  If  the  sophisms  of  Pyrrho^  and  of  the  Academ- 
ics are  what  annoys  (troubles),  we  must  apply  the  remedy 
to  them.  If  it  is  the  persuasion  of  appearances,  by  which 
some  things  appear  to  be  good,  when  they  are  not  good,  let 
us  seek  a  remedy  for  this.  If  it  is  habit  which  annoys  us, 
we  must  try  to  seek  aid  against  habit.  What  aid  then  can  we 
find  against  habit?  The  contrary  habit.  You  hear  the 
ignorant  say :  "That  unfortunate  person  is  dead :  his  father 
and  mother  are  overpowered  with  sorrow;^  he  was  cut  ofif 
by  an  untimely  death  and  in  a  foreign  land."  Hear  the 
contrary  way  of  speaking :  Tear  yourself  from  these  expres- 
sions: oppose  to  one  habit  the  contrary  habit;  to  sophistry 
oppose  reason,  and  the  exercise  and  discipline  of  reason; 
against  persuasive  (deceitful)  appearances  we  ought  to  have 
manifest  prsecognitions  (ytpoXi^ipsi?),  cleared  of  all  impurities 
and  ready  to  hand. 

When  death  appears  an  evil,  we  ought  to  have  this  rule  in 
readiness,  that  it  is  fit  to  avoid  evil  things,  and  that  death 
is  a  necessary  thing.  For  what  shall  I  do,  and  where  shall 
I  escape  it?  Suppose  that  I  am  not  Sarpedon,  the  son  of 
Zeus,  nor  able  to  speak  in  this  noble  way :  I  will  go  and  I  am 
resolved  either  to  behave  bravely  myself  or  to  give  to  an- 
other the  opportunity  of  doing  so;  if  I  can  not  succeed  in 
doing  any  thing  myself,  I  will  not  grudge  another  the  doing 
of  something  noble. — Suppose  that  it  is  above  our  power 
to  act  thus ;  is  it  not  in  our  power  to  reason  thus  ?     Tell  me 

76 


DISCOURSES  *n 

where  I  can  escape  death :  discover  for  me  the  country,  show 
me  the  men  to  whom  I  must  go,  whom  death  does  not  visit. 
Discover  to  me  a  charm  against  death.  If  I  have  not  one, 
what  do  you  viish  me  to  dor  I  can  not  escape  from  death. 
Shall  I  not  escape  from  the  fear  of  death,  but  shall  I  die  la- 
menting and  trembling?  For  the  origin  of  perturbation  is 
this,  to  wish  for  something,  and  that  this  should  not  happen. 
Therefore  if  I  am  able  to  change  externals  according  to  my 
wish,  I  change  them ;  but  if  I  can  not,  I  am  ready  to  tear  out 
the  eyes  of  him  who  hinders  me.  For  the  nature  of  man  is 
not  to  endure  to  be  deprived  of  the  good,  and  not  to  endure 
the  falling  into  evil.  Then  at  last,  when  I  am  neither  able 
to  change  circumstances  nor  to  tear  out  the  eyes  of  him  who 
hinders  me,  I  sit  down  and  groan  and  abuse  whom  I  can, 
Zeus  and  the  rest  of  the  gods.  For  if  they  do  not  care  for 
me,  what  are  they  to  me  ? — Yes,  but  you  will  be  an  impious 
man. — In  what  respect  then  will  it  be  worse  for  me  than  it 
is  now? — To  sum  up,  remember  this  that  unless  piety  and 
your  interest  be  in  the  same  thing,  piety  can  not  be  main- 
tained in  any  man.  Do  not  these  things  seem  necessary 
(true) ? 

Let  the  followers  of  Pyrrho  and  the  Academics  come  and 
make  their  objections.  For  I,  as  to  my  part,  have  no  leisure 
for  these  disputes,  nor  am  I  able  to  undertake  the  defence 
of  common  consent  (opinion).  If  I  had  a  suit  even  about 
a  bit  of  land,  I  would  call  in  another  to  defend  my  interests. 
With  what  evidence  then  am  I  satisfied?  With  that  which 
belongs  to  the  matter  in  hand.^  How  indeed  perception  is 
effected,  whether  through  the  whole  body  or  any  part,  per- 
haps I  can  not  explain :  for  both  opinions  perplex  me.  But 
that  you  and  I  are  not  the  same,  I  know  with  perfect  cer- 
tainty. How  do  you  know  it?  When  I  intend  to  swallow 
anything,  I  never  carry  it  to  your  mouth,  but  to  my  own. 
When  I  intend  to  take  bread,  I  never  lay  hold  of  a  broom, 
but  I  always  go  to  the  bread  as  to  a  mark.  And  you  your- 
selves (the  Pyrrhonists),  who  take  away  the  evidence  of  the 
senses,  do  you  act  otherwise?  Who  among  you,  when  he 
intended  to  enter  a  bath,  ever  went  into  a  mill  ? 

What  then  ?  Ought  we  not  with  all  our  power  to  hold  to 
this  also,  the  maintaining  of  general  opinion,  and  fortify- 


78 


EPICTETUS 


ing  ourselves  against  the  arguments  which  are  directed 
against  it?  Who  denies  that  we  ought  to  do  this?  Well, 
he  should  do  it  who  is  able,  who  has  leisure  for  it;  but  as 
to  him  who  trembles  and  is  perturbed  and  is  inwardly 
broken  in  heart  (spirit),  he  must  employ  his  time  better 
on  something  else. 

NOTES 

*  Pyrrho  was  a  native  of  Elis,  in  the  Peloponnesus.  He  is  said  to  have 
accompanied  Alexander  the  Great  in  his  Asiatic  expedition.  The  time 
of  his  birth  is  not  stated,  but  it  is  said  that  he  lived  to  the  age  of  ninety. 

*A7t(bX£To  does  not  mean  that  the  father  is  dead,  and  that  the  mother 
is  dead.   They  survive  and  lament.   Compare  Euripides,  Alcestis,  v.  825 : 

a.7CooA.6ju£(76a  itdyreg,  ov  Keivrf  fiov 

*  "  The  chief  question  which  was  debated  between  the  Pyrrhonists  and 
the  Academics  on  one  side,  and  the  Stoics  on  the  other,  was  this: 
whether  there  is  a  criterion  of  truth ;  and  in  the  first  place,  the  question 
is  about  the  evidence  of  the  senses,  or  the  certainty  of  truth  in  those 
things  which  are  perceived  by  the  senses." — Schweighftuser. 

The  strength  of  the  Stoic  system  was  that  "it  furnishes  a  ground- 
work of  common  sense,  and  the  universal  belief  of  mankind,  on  which 
to  found  sufficient  certitude  for  the  requirements  of  life :  on  the  other 
hand,  the  real  question  of  knowledge,  in  the  philosophical  sense  of  the 
word,  was  abandoned."   Levin's  Six  Lectures,  p,  70. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THAT  WE  OUGHT  NOT  TO  BE  ANGRY  WITH  MEN  ;  AND  WHAT 
ARE  THE  SMALL  AND  THE  GREAT  THINGS  AMONG  MEN^ 

WHAT  is  the  cause  of  assenting  to  anything?  The 
fact  that  it  appears  to  be  true.  It  is  not  possible 
then  to  assent  to  that  which  appears  not  to  be 
true.  Why?  Because  this  is  the  nature  of  the 
understanding,  to  incline  to  the  true,  to  be  dissatisfied  with 
the  false,  and  in  matters  uncertain  to  withhold  assent. 
What  is  the  proof  of  this?  Imagine  (persuade  yourself), 
if  you  can,  that  it  is  now  night.  It  is  not  possible.  Take 
away  your  persuasion  that  it  is  day.  It  is  not  possible. 
Persuade  yourself  or  take  away  your  persuasion  that  the 
stars  are  even  in  number.^  It  is  impossible.  When  then 
any  man  assents  to  that  which  is  false,  be  assured  that  he  did 
not  intend  to  assent  to  it  as  false,  for  every  soul  is  unwill- 
ingly deprived  of  the  truth,  as  Plato  says;  but  the  falsity 
seemed  to  him  to  be  true.  Well,  in  acts  what  have  we  of 
the  like  kind  as  we  have  here  truth  or  falsehood  ?  We  have 
the  fit  and  the  not  fit  (duty  and  not  duty),  the  profitable 
and  the  unprofitable,  that  which  is  suitable  to  a  person  and 
that  which  is  not,  and  whatever  is  like  these.  Can  then  a 
man  think  that  a  thing  is  useful  to  him  and  not  choose  it? 
He  can  not.    How  says  Medea  ?' — 

"  'Tis  true  I  know  what  evil  I  shall  do, 
But  passion  overpowers  the  better  counsel." 

She  thought  that  to  indulge  her  passion  and  take  vengeance 
on  her  husband  was  more  profitable  than  to  spare  her  chil- 
dren. It  was  so;  but  she  was  deceived.  Show  her  plainly 
that  she  is  deceived,  and  she  will  not  do  it ;  but  so  long  as  you 
do  not  show  it,  what  can  she  follow  except  that  which  ap- 
pears to  herself  (her  opinion)  ?  Nothing  else.  Why  then 
are  you  angry  with  the  unhappy  woman  that  she  has  been 
bewildered  about  the  most  important  things,  and  is  become 
a  viper  instead  of  a  human  creature?      And  why  not,  if 

79 


8o  EPICTETUS 

it  is  possible,  rather  pity,  as  we  pity  the  blind  and  the  lame, 
so  those  who  are  blinded  and  maimed  in  the  faculties  which 
are  supreme? 

Whoever  then  clearly  remembers  this,  that  to  man  the 
measure  of  every  act  is  the  appearance  (the  opinion), — 
whether  the  thing  appears  good  or  bad :  if  good,  he  is  free 
from  blame;  if  bad,  himself  suffers  the  penalty,  for  it  is 
impossible  that  he  who  is  deceived  can  be  one  person,  and 
he  who  suffers  another  person — whoever  remembers  this 
will  not  be  angry  with  any  man,  will  not  be  vexed  at  any 
man,  will  not  revile  or  blame  any  man,  nor  hate  nor  quarrel 
with  any  man. 

So  then  all  these  great  and  dreadful  deeds  have  this 
origin,  in  the  appearance  (opinion)  ?  Yes,  this  origin  and 
no  other.  The  Iliad  is  nothing  else  than  appearance  and 
the  use  of  appearances.  It  appeared^  to  Alexander  to  carry 
off  the  wife  of  Menelaus :  it  appeared  to  Helene  to  follow 
him.  If  then  it  had  appeared  to  Menelaus  to  feel  that  it 
was  a  gain  to  be  deprived  of  such  a  wife,  what  would  have 
happened?  Not  only  would  the  Iliad  have  been  lost,  but 
the  Odyssey  also.  On  so  small  a  matter  then  did  such  great 
things  depend?  But  what  do  you  mean  by  such  great 
things  ?  Wars  and  civil  commotions,  and  the  destruction  of 
many  men  and  cities.  And  what  great  matter  is  this?  Is 
it  nothing? — But  what  great  matter  is  the  death  of  many 
oxen,  and  many  sheep,  and  many  nests  of  swallows  or  storks 
being  burnt  or  destroyed  ?  Are  these  things  then  like  those? 
Very  like.  Bodies  of  men  are  destroyed,  and  the  bodies  of 
oxen  and  sheep;  the  dwellings  of  men  are  burnt,  and  the 
nests  of  storks.  What  is  there  in  this  great  or  dreadful? 
Or  show  me  what  is  the  difference  between  a  man's  house 
and  a  stork's  nest,  as  far  as  each  is  a  dwelling;  except  that 
man  builds  his  little  houses  of  beams  and  tiles  and  bricks, 
and  the  stork  builds  them  of  sticks  and  mud.  Are  a  stork 
and  a  man  then  like  things  ?  What  say  you  ? — In  body  they 
are  very  much  alike. 

Does  a  man  then  differ  in  no  respect  from  a  stork  ?  Don't 
suppose  that  I  say  so ;  but  there  is  no  difference  in  these  mat- 
ters (which  I  have  mentioned).  In  what  then  is  the  differ- 
ence? Seek  and  you  will  find  that  there  is  a  difference  in 
another  matter.     See  whether  it  is  not  in  a  man  the  under- 


DISCOURSES  8 1 

Standing  of  what  he  does,  see  if  it  is  not  in  social  community, 
in  fidelity,  in  modesty,  in  steadfastness,  in  intelligence. 
Where  then  is  the  great  good  and  evil  in  men  ?  It  is  where 
the  difference  is.  If  the  difference  is  preserved  and  remains 
fenced  round,  and  neither  modesty  is  destroyed,  nor  fidelity, 
nor  intelligence,  then  the  man  also  is  preserved;  but  if  any 
of  these  things  is  destroyed  and  stormed  like  a  city,  then  the 
man  too  perishes ;  and  in  this  consist  the  great  things.  Alex- 
ander, you  say,  sustained  great  damage  then  when  the 
Hellenes  invaded  and  when  they  ravaged  Troy,  and  when 
his  brothers  perished.  By  no  means ;  for  no  man  is  damaged 
by  an  action  which  is  not  his  own;  but  what  happened  at 
that  time  was  only  the  destruction  of  stork's  nests :  now  the 
ruin  of  Alexander  was  when  he  lost  the  character  of 
modesty,  fidelity,  regard  to  hospitality,  and  to  decency. 
When  was  Achilles  ruined?  Was  it  when  Patroclus  died? 
Not  so.  But  it  happened  when  he  began  to  be  angry,  when 
he  wept  for  a  girl,  when  he  forgot  that  he  was  at  Troy  not 
to  get  mistresses,  but  to  fight.  These  things  are  the  ruin 
of  men,  this  is  being  besieged,  this  is  the  destruction  of 
cities,  when  right  opinions  are  destroyed,  when  they  are 
corrupted. 

When  then  women  are  carried  off,  when  children  are 
made  captives,  and  when  the  men  are  killed,  are  these  not 
evils?  How  is  it  then  that  you  add  to  the  facts  these 
opinions?  Explain  this  to  me  also. — I  shall  not  do  that; 
but  how  is  it  that  you  say  that  these  are  not  evils  ? — Let  us 
come  to  the  rules;  produce  the  praecognitions  {npoXriipei'i):. 
for  it  is  because  this  is  neglected  that  we  can  not  sufficiently 
wonder  at  what  men  do.  When  we  intend  to  judge  of 
weights,  we  do  not  judge  by  giiess :  where  we  intend  to 
judge  of  straight  and  crooked,  we  do  not  judge  by  guess. 
In  all  cases  where  it  is  our  interest  to  know  what  is  true  in 
any  matter,  never  will  any  man  among  us  do  anything  by 
guess.  But  in  things  which  depend  on  the  first  and  on  the 
only  cause  of  doing  right  or  wrong,  of  happiness  or  un- 
happiness,  of  being  unfortunate  or  fortunate,  there  only  we 
are  inconsiderate  and  rash.  There  is  then  nothing  like 
scales  (balance),  nothing  like  a  rule:  but  some  appearance 
is  presented,  and  straightway  I  act  according  to  it.     Must  I 


82  EPICTETUS 

then  suppose  that  I  am  superior  to  Achilles  or  Agamemnon, 
so  that  they  by  following  appearances  do  and  suffer  so  many 
evils :  and  shall  not  the  appearance  be  sufficient  for  me  ? — 
And  what  tragedy  has  any  other  beginning?  The  Atreus 
of  Euripides,  what  is  it?  An  appearance.  The  CEdipus  of 
Sophocles,  what  is  it  ?  An  appearance.  The  Phoenix  ?  An 
appearance.  The  Hippolytus?  An  appearance.  What 
kind  of  a  man  then  do  you  suppose  him  to  be  who  pays  no 
regard  to  this  matter  ?  And  what  is  the  name  of  those  who 
follow  every  appearance?  They  are  called  madmen.  Do 
we  then  act  at  all  differently? 

NOTES 

*  See  Chapter  i8  of  this  book. 

*  We  can  not  conceive  that  the  number  of  stars  is  either  even  or  odd. 
The  construction  of  the  word  drtoTtdcrxsty  is  uncertain,  for  says 
Schweighauser,  the  word  is  found  only  here. 

'  The  Medea  of  Euripides,  1079. 

*  This  is  the  literal  version.  It  does  not  mean  "that  it  appeared  right," 
as  Mrs.  Carter  translates  it.  Alexander  never  thought  whether  it  was 
right  or  wrong.  All  that  appeared  to  him  v/as  the  possessing  of  Helene, 
and  he  used  the  means  for  getting  possession  of  her,  as  a  dog  who  spies 
and  pursues  some  wild  animad. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

ON  CONSTANCY   (OR  FIRMNESS  ) 

THE  being  (nature)  of  the  Good  is  a  certain  Will;  the 
being  of  the  Bad  is  a  certain  kind  of  Will.  What 
then  are  externals?  Materials  for  the  Will,  about 
which  the  will  being  conversant  shall  obtain  its  own 
good  or  evil.  How  shall  it  obtain  the  good.  If  it  does  not 
admire  (overvalue)  the  materials;  for  the  opinions  about 
the  materials,  if  the  opinions  are  right,  make  the  will  good : 
but  perverse  and  distorted  opinions  make  the  will  bad. 
God  has  fixed  this  law,  and  says,  "If  you  would  have  any 
thing  good,  receive  it  from  yourself."  You  say,  No,  but  I 
will  have  it  from  another. — Do  not  so:  but  receive  it  from 
yourself.  Therefore  when  the  tyrant  threatens  and  calls 
me,  I  say,  Whom  do  you  threaten?  If  he  says,  I  will  put 
you  in  chains,  I  say.  You  threaten  my  hands  and  my  feet. 
If  he  says,  I  will  cut  off  your  head,  I  reply,  You  threaten  my 
head.  If  he  says,  I  will  throw  you  into  prison,  I  say,  You 
threaten  the  whole  of  this  poor  body.  If  he  threatens  me 
with  banishment,  I  say  the  same.  Does  he  then  not  threaten 
you  at  all?  If  I  feel  that  all  these  things  do  not  concern 
me,  he  does  not  threaten  me  at  all ;  but  if  I  fear  any  of  them, 
it  is  I  whom  he  threatens.  Whom  then  do  I  fear?  the 
master  of  what?  The  master  of  things  which  are  in  my 
own  power  ?  There  is  no  such  master.  Do  I  fear  the  mas- 
ter of  things  which  are  not  in  my  power?  And  what  are 
these  things  to  me? 

Do  you  philosophers  then  teach  us  to  despise  kings?  I 
hope  not.  Who  among  us  teaches  to  claim  against  them  the 
power  over  things  which  they  possess  ?  Take  my  poor  body, 
take  my  property,  take  my  reputation,  take  those  who  are 
about  me.  If  I  advise  any  persons  to  claim  these  things, 
they  may  truly  accuse  me. — Yes,  but  I  intend  to  command 
your  opinions  also. — And  who  has  given  you  this  power? 
How  can  you  conquer  the  opinion  of  another  man?  By 
applying  terror  to  it,  he  replies,  I  will  conquer  it.     Do  you 

83 


84  EPICTETUS 

not  know  that  opinion  conquers  itself,  and  is  not  conquered 
by  another?  But  nothing  else  can  conquer  Will  except  the 
Will  itself.  For  this  reason  too  the  law  of  God  is  most 
powerful  and  most  just,  which  is  this :  Let  the  stronger 
always  be  superior  to  the  weaker.  Ten  are  stronger  than 
one.  For  what?  For  putting  in  chains,  for  killing,  for 
dragging  whither  they  choose,  for  taking  away  what  a  man 
has.  The  ten  therefore  conquer  the  one  in  this  in  which 
they  are  stronger.  In  what  then  are  the  ten  weaker?  If 
the  one  possesses  right  opinions  and  the  others  do  not. 
Well  then,  can  the  ten  conquer  in  this  matter?  How  is  it 
possible?  If  we  were  placed  in  the  scales,  must  not  the 
heavier  draw  down  the  scale  in  which  it  is. 

How  strange  then  that  Socrates  should  have  been  so 
treated  by  the  Athenians.  Slave,  why  do  you  say  Socrates  ? 
Speak  of  the  thing  as  it  is :  how  strange  that  the  poor  body 
of  Socrates  should  have  been  carried  off  and  dragged  to 
prison  by  stronger  men,  and  that  any  one  should  have 
given  hemlock  to  the  poor  body  of  Socrates,  and  that  it 
should  breathe  out  the  life.  Do  these  things  seem  strange, 
do  they  seem  unjust,  do  you  on  account  of  these  things 
blame  God?  Had  Socrates  then  no  equivalent  for  these 
things?  Where  then  for  him  was  the  nature  of  good? 
Whom  shall  we  listen  to,  you  or  him?  And  what  does 
Socrates  say?  Anytus  and  Melitus^  can  kill  me,  but  they 
can  not  hurt  me :  and  further,  he  says,  "If  it  so  pleases  God, 
so  let  it  be." 

But  show  me  that  he  who  has  the  inferior  principles  over- 
powers him  who  is  superior  in  principles.  You  will  never 
show  this,  nor  come  near  showing  it ;  for  this  is  the  law  of 
nature  and  of  God  that  the  superior  shall  always  overpower 
the  inferior.  In  what?  In  that  in  which  it  is  superior. 
One  body  is  stronger  than  another :  many  are  stronger  than 
one :  the  thief  is  stronger  than  he  who  is  not  a  thief.  This 
is  the  reason  why  I  also  lost  my  lamp,  because  in  wakeful- 
ness the  thief  was  superior  to  me.  But  the  man  bought  the 
lamp  at  this  price :  for  a  lamp  he  became  a  thief,  a  faithless 
fellow,  and  like  a  wild  beast.  This  seemed  to  him  a  good 
bargain.  Be  it  so.  But  a  man  has  seized  me  by  the  cloak, 
and  is  drawing  me  to  the  public  place :  then  others  bawl  out, 


DISCOURSES  85 

"Philosopher,  what  has  been  the  use  of  your  opinions?  see 
you  are  dragged  to  prison,  you  are  going  to  be  beheaded." 
And  what  system  of  philosophy  {eia-ayaoyriv)  could  I  have 
made  so  that,  if  a  stronger  man  should  have  laid  hold  of  my 
cloak,  I  should  not  be  dragged  off;  that  if  ten  men  should 
have  laid  hold  of  me  and  cast  me  into  prison,  I  should  not 
be  cast  in?  Have  I  learned  nothing  else  then?  I  have 
learned  to  see  that  everything  which  happens,  if  it  be  inde- 
pendent of  my  will,  is  nothing  to  me.  I  may  ask,  if  you 
have  not  gained  by  this.  Why  then  do  you  seek  advantage 
in  any  thing  else  than  in  that  in  which  you  have  learned  that 
advantage  is? 

Then  sitting  in  prison  I  say:  The  man  who  cries  out 
in  this  way  neither  hears  what  words  mean,  nor  understands 
what  is  said,  nor  does  he  care  at  all  to  know  what  philoso- 
phers say  or  what  they  do.     Let  him  alone. 

But  now  he  says  to  the  prisoner,  Come  out  from  your 
prison. — If  you  have  no  further  need  of  me  in  prison,  I 
come  out :  if  you  should  have  need  of  me  again,  I  will  enter 
the  prison. — How  long  will  you  act  thus  ? — So  long  as  reason 
requires  me  to  be  with  the  body :  but  when  reason  does  not 
require  this,  take  away  the  body,  and  fare  you  well.  Only 
we  must  not  do  it  inconsiderately,  nor  weakly,  nor  for  any 
slight  reason;  for,  on  the  other  hand,  God  does  not  wish  it 
to  be  done,  and  he  has  need  of  such  a  world  and  such  inhabit- 
ants in  it.  But  if  he  sounds  the  signals  for  retreat,  as  he 
did  to  Socrates,  we  must  obey  him  who  gives  the  signal,  as 
if  he  were  a  general.^ 

Well  then,  ought  we  to  say  such  things  to  the  many? 
Why  should  we?  Is  it  not  enough  for  a  man  to  be  per- 
suaded himself  ?  When  children  come  clapping  their  hands 
and  crying  out,  "To-day  is  the  good  Saturnalia,"  do  we  say, 
"The  Saturnalia  are  not  good"  ?  By  no  means,  but  we  clap 
our  hands  also.  Do  you  also  then,  when  you  are  not  able  to 
make  a  man  change  his  mind,  be  assured  that  he  is  a  child, 
and  clap  your  hands  with  him ;  and  if  you  do  not  choose  to 
do  this,  keep  silent. 

A  man  must  keep  this  in  mind;  and  when  he  is  called  to 
any  such  difficulty,  he  should  know  that  the  time  is  come 
for  showing  if  he  has  been  instructed.     For  he  who  is  come 


86  EPICTETUS 

into  a  difficulty  is  like  a  young  man  from  a  school  who  has 
practised  the  resolution  of  syllogisms ;  and  if  any  person  pro- 
poses to  him  an  easy  syllogism,  he  says,  rather  propose  to 
me  a  syllogism  which  is  skilfully  complicated  that  I  may 
exercise  myself  on  it.     Even  athletes  are  dissatisfied  with 
slight  young  men,  and  say,  "He  can  not  lift  me." — "This  is 
a  youth  of  noble  disposition."     [You  do  not  so] ;  but  when 
the  time  of  trial  is  come,  one  of  you  must  weep  and  say,  "I 
wish  that  I  had  learned  more."     A  little  more  of  what?     If 
you  did  not  learn  these  things  in  order  to  show  them  in  prac- 
tice, why  did  you  learn  them?     I  think  that  there  is  some 
one  among  you  who  are  sitting  here,  who  is  suffering  like  a 
woman  in  labour,  and  saying,  "Oh,  that  such  a  difficulty 
does  not  present  itself  to  me  as  that  which  has  come  to  this 
man ;  oh,  that  I  should  be  wasting  my  life  in  a  corner,  when 
I  might  be  crowned  at  Olympia.     When  will  any  one  an- 
nounce to  me  such  a  contest?"     Such  ought  to  be  the  dis- 
position of  all  of  you.   Even  among  the  gladiators  of  Caesar 
(the  Emperor)  there  are  some  who  complain  grievously  that 
they  are  not  brought  forward  and  matched,  and  they  offer 
up  prayers  to  God  and  address  themselves  to  their  superin- 
tendents intreating  that  they  may  fight.^  And  will  no  one 
among  you  show  himself  such?     I  would  willingly  take  a 
voyage  [to  Rome]  for  this  purpose  and  see  what  my  athlete 
is  doing,  how  he  is  studying  his  subject. — I  do  not  choose 
such  a  subject,  he  says.     Why,  is  it  in  your  power  to  take 
what  subject  you  choose?     There  has  been  given  to  you 
such  a  body  as  you  have,  such  parents,  such  brethren,  such 
a  country,  such  a  place  in  your  country : — then  you  come  to 
me  and  say.  Change  my  subject.     Have  you  not  abilities 
which  enable  you  to  manage  the  subject  which  has  been 
given  to  you?     [You  ought  to  say]  :     It  is  your  business  to 
propose ;  it  is  mine  to  exercise  myself  well.     However,  you 
do  not  say  so,  but  you  say,  "Do  not  propose  to  me  such  a 
tropic,*  but  such  [as  I  would  choose]  :do  not  urge  against  me 
such  an  objection,  but  such  [as  I  would  choose]."     There 
will  be  a  time  perhaps  when  tragic  actors  will  suppose  that 
they  are  [only]  masks  and  buskins  and  the  long  cloak.*^     I 
say,  these  things,  man,  are  your  material  and  subject.    Utter 
something  that  we  may  know  whether  you  are  a  tragic  actor 


DISCOURSES  87 

or  a  buffoon ;  for  both  of  you  have  all  the  rest  in  common. 
If  any  one  then  should  take  away  the  tragic  actor's  buskins 
and  his  mask,  and  introduce  him  on  the  stage  as  a  phantom, 
is  the  tragic  actor  lost,  or  does  he  still  remain?  If  he  has 
voice,  he  still  remains. 

An  example  of  another  kind.  "Assume  the  governorship 
of  a  province."  I  assume  it,  and  when  I  have  assumed  it,  I 
show  how  an  instructed  man  behaves.  "Lay  aside  the  lati- 
clave  (the  mark  of  senatorial  rank),  and  clothing  yourself 
in  rags,  come  forward  in  this  character."  What  then  have  I 
not  the  power  of  displaying  a  good  voice  (that  is,  of  doing 
something  that  I  ought  to  do)  ?  How  then  do  you  now  ap- 
pear (on  the  stage  of  life)  ?  As  a  witness  summoned  by 
Grod.  "Come  forward,®  you,  and  bear  testimony  for  me,  for 
you  are  worthy  to  be  brought  forward  as  a  witness  by  me: 
is  any  thing  external  to  the  will  good  or  bad  ?  Do  I  hurt  any 
man?  have  I  made  every  man's  interest  dependent  on  any 
man  except  himself?  What  testimony  do  you  give  for 
God?" — I  am  in  a  wretched  condition,  Master*^  (Lord),  and 
I  am  unfortunate;  no  man  cares  for  me,  no  man  gives  me 
anything ;  all  blame  me,  all  speak  ill  of  me. — Is  this  the  evi- 
dence that  you  are  going  to  give,  and  disgrace  his  summons, 
who  has  conferred  so  much  honour  on  you,  and  thought  you 
worthy  of  being  called  to  bear  such  testimony  ? 

But  suppose  that  he  who  has  the  power  has  declared,  "I 
judge  you  to  be  impious  and  profane."  What  has  happened 
to  you?  I  have  been  judged  to  be  impious  and  profane? 
Nothing  else?  Nothing  else.  But  if  the  same  person  had 
passed  judgment  on  an  hypothetical  syllogism  {avrjvnfxivov\ 
and  had  made  a  declaration,  "the  conclusion  that,  if  it  is  day, 
it  is  light,  I  declare  to  be  false,"  what  has  happened  to  the 
hypothetical  syllogism?  who  is  judged  in  this  case?  who  has 
been  condemned  ?  the  hypothetical  syllogism,  or  the  man  who 
has  been  deceived  by  it?  Does  he  then  who  has  the  power 
of  making  any  declaration  about  you  know  what  is  pious  or 
impious?  Has  he  studied  it,  and  has  he  learned  it? 
Where?  From  whom?  Then  is  it  the  fact  that  a  musician 
pays  no  regard  to  him  who  declares  that  the  lowest  chord 
in  the  lyre  is  the  highest ;  nor  yet  a  geometrician,  if  he  de- 
clares that  the  lines  from  the  centre  of  a  circle  to  the  circum- 


88  EPICTETUS 

ference  are  not  equal;  and  shall  he  who  is  really  instructed 
pay  any  regard  to  the  uninstructed  man  when  he  pronounces 
judgment  on  what  is  pious  and  what  is  impious,  on  what  is 
just  and  unjust?  Oh,  the  signal  wrong  done  by  the  in- 
structed.    Did  they  learn  this  here  ? 

Will  you  not  leave  the  small  arguments  (Xordftia)  about 
these  matters  to  others,  to  lazy  fellows,  that  they  may  sit 
in  a  corner  and  receive  their  sorry  pay,  or  grumble  that  no 
one  gives  them  any  thing;  and  will  you  not  come  forward 
and  make  use  of  what  you  have  learned  ?  For  it  is  not  these 
small  arguments  that  are  wanted  now:  the  writings  of  the 
Stoics  are  full  of  them.  What  then  is  the  thing  which  is 
wanted?  A  man  who  shall  apply  them,  one  who  by  his 
acts  shall  bear  testimony  to  his  words.  Assume,  I  intreat 
you,  this  character,  that  we  may  no  longer  use  in  the  schools 
the  examples  of  the  ancients,  but  may  have  some  example 
of  our  own. 

To  whom  then  does  the  contemplation  of  these  matters 
(philosophical  inquiries)  belong?  To  him  who  has  leisure, 
for  man  is  an  animal  that  loves  contemplation.  But  it  is 
shameful  to  contemplate  these  things  as  runaway  slaves  do : 
we  should  sit,  as  in  a  theatre,  free  from  distraction,  and  listen 
at  one  time  to  the  tragic  actor,  at  another  time  to  the  lute- 
player;  and  not  do  as  slaves  do.  As  soon  as  the  slave  has 
taken  his  station  he  praises  the  actor  and  at  the  same  time 
looks  round :  then  if  any  one  calls  out  his  master's  name,  the 
slave  is  immediately  frightened  and  disturbed.  It  is  shame- 
ful for  philosophers  thus  to  contemplate  the  works  of  nature. 
For  what  is  a  master?  Man  is  not  the  master  of  man;  but 
death  is,  and  life  and  pleasure  and  pain;  for  if  he  comes 
without  these  things,  bring  Caesar  to  me  and  you  will  see 
how  firm  I  am.  But  when  he  shall  come  with  these  things, 
thundering  and  lightning,*  and  when  I  am  afraid  of  them, 
what  do  I  do  then  except  to  recognize  my  master  like  the 
runaway  slave?  But  so  long  as  I  have  any  respite  from 
these  terrors,  as  a  runaway  slave  stands  in  the  theatre,  so  do 
I :  I  bathe,  I  drink,  I  sing ;  but  all  this  I  do  with  terror  and 
uneasiness.  But  if  I  shall  release  myself  from  my  masters, 
that  is  from  those  things  by  means  of  which  masters  are 


DISCOURSES  89 

formidable,  what  further  trouble  have  I,  what  master  have 
I  still? 

What  then,  ought  we  to  publish  these  things  to  all  men  ? 
No,  but  we  ought  to  accommodate  ourselves  to  the  ignorant® 
(roii idtojraii)  and  to  say:  "This  man  recommends  to 
me  that  which  he  thinks  good  for  himself :  I  excuse  him." 
For  Socrates  also  excused  the  jailor,  who  had  the  charge  of 
him  in  prison  and  was  weeping  when  Socrates  was  going  to 
drink  the  poison,  and  said,  "How  generously  he  laments  over 
us."^*  Does  he  then  say  to  the  jailor  that  "for  this  reason  we 
have  sent  away  the  women?"  No,  but  he  says  it  to  his 
friends  who  were  able  to  hear  (understand)  it;  and  he  treats 
the  jailor  as  a  child. 

NOTES 

*The  two  chief  prosecutors  of  Socrates  (Plato,  Apology,  c.  18; 
Epictetus,  ii.  2,  15). 

'  Socrates  was  condemned  by  the  Athenians  to  die,  and  he  was  con- 
tent to  die,  and  thought  that  it  was  a  good  thing;  and  this  was  the 
reason  why  he  made  such  a  defence  as  he  did,  which  brought  on  him 
condemnation ;  and  he  preferred  condemnation  to  escaping  it  by  entreat- 
ing the  dicasts  (judges),  and  lamenting,  and  saying  and  doing  things 
unworthy  of  himself,  as  others  did. — Plato,  Apology,  cc.  29-33. 

*  The  Roman  emperors  kept  gladiators  for  their  own  amusement  and 
that  of  the  people  (Lipsius,  Saturnalia,  ii.  16).  Seneca  says  (De  Provid. 
c.  4),  "I  have  heard  a  mirmillo  (a  kind  of  gladiator)  in  the  time  of 
C.  Caesar  (Caligula)  complaining  of  the  rarity  of  gladiatorial  exhibi- 
tions: 'What  a  glorious  period  of  life  is  wasting.'"  "Virtue,"  says  Sen- 
eca, "is  eager  after  dangers ;  and  it  considers  only  what  it  seeks,  not 
what  it  may  suffer." — Upton. 

*Tropic  (jpoitiKov)  a  logical  term  used  by  Stoics,  which  Schweig- 
hauser  translates  "propositio  connexa  in  syllogismo  hypothetico." 

The  meaning  of  the  whole  is  this.  You  do  not  like  the  work  which  is 
set  before  you :  as  we  say,  you  are  not  content  "to  do  your  duty  in  that 
state  of  life  unto  which  it  shall  please  God  to  call  you."  Now  this  is  as 
foolish,  says  Wolf,  as  for  a  man  in  any  discussion  to  require  that  his  ad- 
versary should  raise  no  objection  except  such  as  may  serve  the  man's 
own  case. 

'  There  will  be  a  time  when  Tragic  actors  shall  not  know  what  their 
business  is,  but  will  think  that  it  is  all  show.  So.  says  Wolf,  philoso- 
phers will  be  only  beard  and  cloak,  and  will  not  show  by  their  life  and 
morals  what  they  really  are ;  or  they  will  be  like  false  monks,  who  only 
wear  the  cowl,  and  do  not  show  a  life  of  piety  and  sanctity. 

•  God  is  introduced  as  speaking. — Schweighauser. 

'  The  word  is  Kvpto^,  the  name  by  which  a  slave  in  Epictetus  ad- 
dresses his  master  (dominus),  a  physician  is  addressed  by  his  patient, 
and  in  other  cases  also  it  is  used.  It  is  also  used  by  the  Evangelists. 
They  speak  of  the  angel  of  the  Lord  (Matt.  i.  24),  and  Jesus  is  ad- 
dressed by  the  same  term  (Matt.  viii.  2),  Lord  or  master. 


90  EPICTETUS 

Mrs.  Carter  has  the  following  note :  "It  hath  been  observed  that  this 
manner  of  expression  is  not  to  be  met  with  in  the  heathen  anthors  be- 
fore Christianity,  and  therefore  it  is  one  instance  of  Scripture  language 
coming  early  into  common  use." 

But  the  word  (Kvptoi)  is  used  by  early  Greek  writers  to  indicate  one 
who  has  power  or  authority,  and  in  a  sense  like  the  Roman  "dominus" 
as  by  Sophocles  for  instance.  The  use  of  the  word  then  by  Epictetus 
was  not  new,  and  it  may  have  been  used  by  the  Stoic  writers  long  before 
his  time.  The  language  of  the  Stoics  was  formed  at  least  two  cen- 
turies before,  the  Christian  era,  and  the  New  Testament  writers  would 
use  the  Greek  word  which  was  current  in  their  age.  The  notion  of 
"Scripture  language  coming  early  into  common  use"  is  entirely  un- 
founded, and  is  even  absurd.  Mrs.  Carter's  remark  implies  that  Epicte- 
tus used  the  Scripture  language,  whereas  he  used  the  particular  lan- 
guage of  the  Stoics,  and  the  general  language  of  his  age,  and  the  New 
Testament  writers  would  do  the  same.  There  are  resemblances  between 
the  language  of  Epictetus  and  the  New  Testament  writers,  such  as 
the  expression  MV  ysvoiro  of  Paul,  which  Epictetus  often  uses;  but  this 
is  a  slight  matter.  The  words  of  Peter  (Ep.  ii.  i,  4),  "that  by  these 
ye  might  be  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,"  are  a  Stoic  expression,  and 
the  writer  of  this  Epistle,  I  think,  took  them  from  the  language  of  the 
Stoics. 

*  Upton  supposes  that  Epictetus  is  alluding  to  the  verse  of  Aristo- 
phanes. (Acharn.  531),  where  it  is  said  of  Pericles: 

"He  flashed,  he  thundered,  and  confounded  Hellas." 

•He  calls  the  uninstructed  and  ignorant  by  the  Greek  word  "Idiotae," 
"idiots,"  which  we  now  use  in  a  peculiar  sense.  An  Idiota  was  a  pri- 
vate individual  as  opposed  to  one  who  filled  some  public  office ;  and 
thence  it  had  generally  the  sense  of  one  who  was  ignorant  of  any  par- 
ticular act,  as,  for  instance,  one  who  had  not  studied  philosophy. 

"Compare  the  Phaedon  of  Plato  (p.  116).  The  children  of  Socrates 
were  brought  in  to  see  him  before  he  took  the  poison  by  which  he  died ; 
and  also  the  wives  of  the  friends  of  Socrates  who  attended  him  to  his 
death.  Socrates  had  ordered  his  wife  Xanthippe  to  be  led  home  before 
he  had  his  last  conversation  with  his  friends,  and  she  was  taken  away 
lamenting  and  bewailing. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

WHAT   WE  OUGHT   TO   HAVE  READY   IN   DIFFICULT   CIRCUM- 
STANCES* 

WHEN  you  are  going  in  to  any  great  personage,  re- 
member that  another  also  from  above  sees  what 
is  going  on,  and  that  you  ought  to  please  him 
rather  than  the  other.  He  then  who  sees  from 
above  asks  you  :  "In  the  schools  what  used  you  to  say  about 
exile  and  bonds  and  death  and  disgrace?"  I  used  to  say  that 
they  are  things  indifferent  (neither  good  nor  bad).  "What 
then  do  you  say  of  them  now  ?  Are  they  changed  at  all  ?" 
No.  "Are  you  changed  then?"  No.  "Tell  me  then  what 
things  are  indifferent?"  The  things  which  are  independent 
of  the  will.  "Tell  me,  also,  what  follows  from  this."  The 
things  which  are  independent  of  the  will  are  nothing  to  me. 
"Tell  me  also  about  the  Good,  what  was  your  opinion  ?"  A 
will  such  as  we  ought  to  have  and  also  such  a  use  of  appear- 
ances. "And  the  end  (purpose),  what  is  it?"  To  follow 
thee.  "Do  you  say  this  now  also  ?"  I  say  the  same  now  also. 
Then  go  in  to  the  great  personage  boldly  and  remember 
these  things;  and  you  will  see  what  a  youth  is  who  has 
studied  these  things  when  he  is  among  men  who  have  not 
studied  them.  I  indeed  imagine  that  you  will  have  such 
thoughts  as  these :  Why  do  we  make  so  great  and  so  many 
preparations  for  nothing?  Is  this  the  thing  which  men 
name  power  ?  Is  this  the  antechamber  ?  this  the  men  of  the 
bed-chamber?  this  the  armed  guards?  Is  it  for  this  that  I 
listened  to  so  many  discourses?  All  this  is  nothing:  but  I 
have  been  preparing  myself  as  for  something  great. 

NOTE 

*  The  reader  may  understand  why  Epictetus  gave  such  a  lesson  as 
this,  if  he  will  remember  the  tyranny  under  which  men  at  that  time  lived. 


9X 


BOOK  II 

CHAPTER  I 

THAT    COURAGE   IS   NOT   INCONSISTENT    WITH    CAUTION 

THE  opinion  of  the  philosophers  perhaps  seems  to  some 
to  be  a  paradox ;  but  still  let  us  examine  as  well  as 
we  can,  if  it  is  true  that  it  is  possible  to  do  every- 
thing both  with  caution  and  with  confidence.  For 
caution  seems  to  be  in  a  manner  contrary  to  confidence,  and 
contraries  are  in  no  way  consistent.  That  which  seems  to 
many  to  be  a  paradox  in  the  matter  under  consideration  in 
my  opinion  is  of  this  kind :  if  we  asserted  that  we  ought  to 
employ  caution  and  confidence  in  the  same  things,  men  might 
justly  accuse  us  of  bringing  together  things  which  can  not  be 
united.  But  now  where  is  the  difficulty  in  what  is  said? 
for  if  these  things  are  true,  which  have  been  often  said  and 
often  proved,  that  the  nature  of  good  is  in  the  use  of  appear- 
ances, and  the  nature  of  evil  likewise,  and  that  things  inde- 
pendent of  our  will  do  not  admit  either  the  nature  of  evil  nor 
of  good,  what  paradox  do  the  philosophers  assert  if  they  say 
that  where  things  are  not  dependent  on  the  will,  there  you 
should  employ  confidence,  but  where  they  are  dependent  on 
the  will,  there  you  should  employ  caution?  For  if  the  bad 
consists  in  a  bad  exercise  of  the  will,  caution  ought  only  to 
be  used  where  things  are  dependent  on  the  will.  But  if 
things  independent  of  the  will  and  not  in  our  power  are  noth- 
ing to  us,  with  respect  to  these  we  must  employ  confidence; 
and  thus  we  shall  both  be  cautious  and  confident,  and  indeed 
confident  because  of  our  caution.  For  by  employing  cau- 
tion towards  things  which  are  really  bad,  it  will  result  that 
we  shall  have  confidence  with  respect  to  things  which  are  not 
so. 

93 


DISCOURSES  93 

We  are  then  in  the  condition  of  deer  ;^  when  they  flee  from 
the  huntsmen's  feathers  in  fright,  whither  do  they  turn  and 
in  what  do  they  seek  refuge  as  safe  ?  They  turn  to  the  nets, 
and  thus  they  perish  by  confounding  things  which  are  ob- 
jects of  fear  with  things  that  they  ought  not  to  fear.  Thus 
we  also  act :  in  what  cases  do  we  fear  ?  In  things  which  are 
independent  of  the  will.  In  what  cases  on  the  contrary  do 
we  behave  with  confidence,  as  if  there  were  no  danger?  In 
things  dependent  on  the  will.  To  be  deceived  then,  or  to 
act  rashly,  or  shamelessly  or  with  base  desire  to  seek  some- 
thing, does  not  concern  us  at  all,  if  we  only  hit  the  mark  in 
things  which  are  independent  of  our  will.  But  where  there 
is  death,  or  exile  or  pain  or  infamy,  there  we  attempt  to  run 
away,  there  we  are  struck  with  terror.  Therefore  as  we 
may  expect  it  to  happen  with  those  who  err  in  the  greatest 
matters,  we  convert  natural  confidence  (that  is,  according  to 
nature,  into  audacity,  desperation,  rashness,  shamelessness ; 
and  we  convert  natural  caution  and  modesty  into  cowardice 
and  meanness,  which  are  full  of  fear  and  confusion.  For  if 
a  man  should  transfer  caution  to  those  things  in  which  the 
will  may  be  exercised  and  the  acts  of  the  will,  he  will  imme- 
diately by  willing  to  be  cautious  have  also  the  power  of 
avoiding  what  he  chooses :  but  if  he  transfer  it  to  the  things 
which  are  not  in  his  power  and  will,  and  attempt  to  avoid 
the  things  which  are  in  the  power  of  others,  he  will  of  neces- 
sity fear,  he  will  be  unstable,  he  will  be  disturbed.  For 
death  or  pain  is  not  formidable,  but  the  fear  of  pain  or  death. 
For  this  reason  we  commend  the  poet*  who  said 

"  Not  death  is  evil,  but  a  shameful  death." 

Confidence  (courage)  then  ought  to  be  employed  against 
death,  and  caution  against  the  fear  of  death.  But  now  we 
do  the  contrary,  and  employ  against  death  the  attempt  to 
escape;  and  to  our  opinion  about  it  we  employ  carelessness, 
rashness  and  indifference.  These  things  Socrates  properly 
used  to  call  tragic  masks;  for  as  to  children  masks  appear 
terrible  and  fearful  from  inexperience,  we  also  are  affected 
in  like  manner  by  events  (the  things  which  happen  in  life) 
for  no  other  reason  than  children  are  by  masks.     For  what 


94  EPICTETUS 

is  a  child  ?  Ignorance.  What  is  a  child  ?  Want  of  know- 
ledge. For  when  a  child  knows  these  things,  he  is  in  no  way 
inferior  to  us.  What  is  death?  A  tragic  mask.  Turn  it 
and  examine  it.  See,  it  does  not  bite.  The  poor  body  must 
be  separated^  from  the  spirit  either  now  or  later  as  it  was  sep- 
arated from  it  before.  Why  then  are  you  troubled,  if  it  be 
separated  now?  for  if  it  is  not  separated  now,  it  will  be  sep- 
arated afterwards.  Why  ?  That  the  period  of  the  universe 
may  be  completed,*  for  it  has  need  of  the  present,  and  of  the 
future,  and  of  the  past.  What  is  pain?  A  mask.  Turn  it 
and  examine  it.  The  poor  flesh  is  moved  roughly,  then  on 
the  contrary  smoothly.  If  this  does  no.t  satisfy  (please) 
you,  the  door  is  open:  if  it  does,  bear  (with  things).  For 
the  door  ought  to  be  open  for  all  occasions ;  and  so  we  have 
no  trouble. 

What  then  is  the  fruit  of  these  opinions?  It  is  that  which 
ought  to  be  the  most  noble  and  the  most  becoming  to  those 
who  are  really  educated ;  release  from  perturbation,  release 
from  fear,  freedom.  For  in  these  matters  we  must  not  be- 
lieve the  many,  who  say  that  free  persons  only  ought  to  be 
educated,  but  -we  should  rather  believe  the  philosophers  who 
say  that  the  educated  only  are  free.  How  is  this  ?  In  this 
manner.  Is  freedom  any  thing  else  than  the  power  of  liv- 
ing as  we  choose?  Nothing  else.  Tell  me  then,  ye  men, 
do  you  wish  to  live  in  error?  We  do  not.  No  one  then 
who  lives  in  error  is  free.  Do  you  wish  to  live  in  fear? 
Do  you  wish  to  live  in  sorrow  ?  Do  you  wish  to  live  in  per- 
turbation? By  no  means.  No  one  then  who  is  in  a  state 
of  fear  or  sorrow  or  perturbation  is  free;  but  whoever  is  de- 
livered from  sorrows  and  fears  and  perturbations,  he  is  at 
the  same  time  also  delivered  from  servitude.  How  then  can 
we  continue  to  believe  you,  most  dear  legislators,  when  you 
say,  We  only  allow  free  persons  to  be  educated  ?  For  phi- 
losophers say  we  allow  none  to  be  free  except  the  educated ; 
that  is,  God  does  not  allow  it.  When  then  a  man  has  turned' 
round  before  the  praetor  his  own  slave,  has  he  done  nothing? 
He  has  done  something.  What?  He  has  turned  round  his 
own  slave  before  the  praetor.  Has  he  done  nothing  more? 
Yes :  he  is  also  bound  to  pay  for  him  the  tax  called  the  twen- 
tieth.    Well  then,  is  not  the  man  who  has  gone  through  this 


DISCOURSES  95 

ceremony  become  free?  No  more  than  he  is  become  free 
from  perturbations.  Have  you  who  are  able  to  turn  round 
(free)  others  no  master?  is  not  money  your  master,  or  a  girl 
or  a  boy,  or  some  tyrant,  or  some  friend  of  the  tyrant  ?  why 
do  you  tremble  then  when  you  are  going  off  to  any  trial 
(danger)  of  this  kind?  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  often 
say,  study  and  hold  in  readiness  these  principles  by  which 
you  may  determine  what  those  things  are  with  reference  to 
which  you  ought  to  have  confidence  (courage),  and  those 
things  with  reference  to  which  you  ought  to  be  cautious: 
courageous  in  that  which  does  not  depend  on  your  will ;  cau- 
tious in  that  which  does  depend  on  it. 

Well  have  I  not  read  to  you,®  and  do  you  not  know  what 
I  was  doing  ?  In  what  ?  In  my  little  dissertations. — Show  me 
how  you  are  with  respect  to  desire  and  aversion  (eKKXta-tv)  : 
and  show  me  if  you  do  not  fail  in  getting  what  you  wish, 
and  if  you  do  not  fall  into  the  things  which  you  would  avoid : 
but  as  to  these  long  and  laboured  sentences  you  will  take 
them  and  blot  them  out. 

What  then  did  not  Socrates  write?  And  who  wrote  so 
much  ?'' — But  how  ?  As  he  could  not  always  have  at  hand 
one  to  argue  against  his  principles  or  to  be  argued  against 
in  turn,  he  used  to  argue  with  and  examine  himself,  and  he 
was  always  treating  at  least  some  one  subject  in  a  practical 
way.  These  are  the  things  which  a  philosopher  writes.  But 
little  dissertations  and  that  method,  which  I  speak  of,  he 
leaves  to  others,  to  the  stupid,  or  to  those  happy  men  who 
being  free  from  perturbations®  have  leisure,  or  to  such  as 
are  too  foolish  to  reckon  consequences. 

And  will  you  now,  when  the  opportunity  invites,  go  and 
display  those  things  which  you  possess,  and  recite  them,  and 
make  an  idle  show,  and  say,  See  how  I  make  dialogues  ?  Do 
not  so,  my  man;  but  rather  say;  See  how  I  am  not  disap- 
pointed of  that  which  I  desire:  See  how  I  do  not  fall  into 
that  which  I  would  avoid.  Set  death  before  me,  and  you 
will  see.  Set  before  me  pain,  prison,  disgrace  and  condem- 
nation. This  is  the  proper  display  of  a  young  man  who  is 
come  out  of  the  schools.  But  leave  the  rest  to  others,  and 
let  no  one  ever  hear  you  say  a  word  about  these  things ;  and 
if  any  man  commends  you  for  them,  do  not  allow  it;  but 


^6  EPICTETUS 

think  that  you  are  nobody  and  know  nothing.  Only  show 
that  you  know  this,  how  never  to  be  disappointed  in  your 
desire  and  how  never  to  fall  into  that  which  you  would 
avoid.  Let  others  labour  at  forensic  causes,  problems  and 
syllogisms :  do  you  labour  at  thinking  about  death,^  chains, 
the  rack,  exile  ;^"  and  do  all  this  with  confidence  and  reliance 
on  him  who  has  called  you  to  these  sufferings,  who  has 
judged  you  worthy  of  the  place  in  which  being  stationed 
you  will  show  what  things  the  rational  governing  power 
can  do  when  it  takes  its  stand  against  the  forces  which  are 
not  within  the  power  of  our  will.  And  thus  this  paradox 
will  no  longer  appear  either  impossible  or  a  paradox,  that  a 
man  ought  to  be  at  the  same  time  cautious  and  courageous : 
courageous  towards  the  things  which  do  not  depend  on  the 
will,  and  cautious  in  things  which  are  within  the  power  of 
the  will. 

NOTES 

*  It  was  the  fashion  of  hunters  to  frighten  deer  by  displaying  feathers 
of  various  colours  on  ropes  or  strings  and  thus  frightening  them  towards 
the  nets.    Virgil,  Georg.  iii.  372 — 

Puniceaeve  ag^tant  pavidos  formidine  pennae. 

'  Euripides,  Frag^ments. 

*  It  was  the  opinion  of  some  philosophers  that  the  soul  was  a  portion 
of  the  divinity  sent  down  into  human  bodies. 

*  This  was  a  doctrine  of  Heraclitus  and  of  Zeno.  Zeno  (Diog.  Laert. 
vii.  137)  speaks  of  God  as  "in  certain  periods  or  revolutions  of  time 
exhausting  into  himself  the  universal  substance  {ovaia)  and  again 
generating  it  out  of  himself."  Antoninus  (xi.  i)  speaks  of  the  periodi- 
cal renovation  of  all  things.  For  man,  whose  existence  is  so  short,  the 
doctrine  of  all  existing  things  perishing  in  the  course  of  time  and  then 
being  renewed,  is  of  no  practical  value.  The  present  is  enough  for  most 
men.  But  for  the  few  who  are  able  to  embrace  in  thought  the  past,  the 
present  and  the  future,  the  contemplation  of  the  perishable  nature  of 
all  existing  things  may  have  a  certain  value  by  elevating  their  minds 
above  the  paltry  things  which  others  prize  above  their  worth. 

'  This  is  an  allusion  to  one  of  the  Roman  modes  of  manumitting  a 
slave  before  the  praetor. 

■  The  sum  paid  on  manumission  was  a  tax  of  five  per  cent.,  established 
in  B.C.  356  and  paid  by  the  slave.  Epictetus  here  speaks  of  the  tax 
being  paid  by  the  master;  but  in  iii.  26,  he  speaks  of  it  as  paid  by  the 
enfranchised  slave. 

*  These  are  the  words  of  some  pupil  who  is  boasting  of  what  he  has 
written. 

'  No  other  author  speaks  of  Socrates  having  written  any  thing.  It 
is  therefore  very  difficult  to  explain  this  passage  in  which  Arrian,  who 
took  down  the  words  of  Epictetus,  represents  him  as  saying  that  Soc- 


DISCOURSES  97 

rates  wrote  so  much.  Socrates  talked  much,  and  Epictetus  may  have 
spoken  of  talking  as  if  it  were  writing ;  for  he  must  have  known  that 
Socrates  was  not  a  writer. 

*The  word  is  vitb  drapa^iai.  Mrs.  Carter  thinks  that  the  true 
reading  is  vitb  dicpa^iai,  '  through  idleness '  or  '  having  nothing  to  do ' ; 
and  she  remarks  that  'freedom  from  perturbations'  is  the  very  thing 
that  Epictetus  had  been  recommending  through  the  whole  chapter  and 
is  the  subject  of  the  next  chapter,  and  therefore  can  not  be  well  supposed 
to  be  the  true  reading  in  a  place  where  it  is  mentioned  with  contempt 
It  is  probable  that  Mrs.  Carter  is  right.  Upton  thinks  that  Epictetus 
is  alluding  to  the  Sophists,  and  that  we  should  understand  him  as 
speaking  ironically;  and  this  may  also  be  right.  Schweighftuser  at- 
tempts to  explain  the  passage  by  taking  'free  from  perturbations'  in 
the  ordinary  simple  sense ;    but  I  doubt  if  he  has  succeeded. 

*"The  whole  life  of  philosophers,"  says  Cicero  (Tusc.  i.  30),  follow- 
ing Plato,  "is  a  reflection  upon  death." 

"Some  English  readers,  too  happy  to  comprehend  how  chains,  tor- 
ture, exile  and  sudden  executions,  can  be  ranked  among  the  common 
accidents  of  life,  may  be  surprised  to  find  Epictetus  so  frequently  en- 
deavouring to  prepare  his  hearers  for  them.  But  it  must  be  recollected 
that  he  addressed  himself  to  persons  who  lived  under  the  Roman  em- 
perors, from  whose  tyranny  the  very  best  of  men  were  perpetually  lia- 
ble to  such  kind  of  dangers." — Mrs.  Carter.  All  men  even  now  are 
exposed  to  accidents  and  misfortunes  against  which  there-  is  no  security, 
and  even  the  most  fortunate  of  men  must  die  at  last.  The  lessons  of 
Epictetus  may  be  as  useful  now  as  they  were  in  his  time. 


CHAPTER  II 

OF  TRANQUILLITY  (FREEDOM  FROM  PERTURBATION) 

CONSIDER,  you  who  are  going  into  court,  what  you 
wish  to  maintain  and  what  you  wish  to  succeed  in. 
For  if  you  wish  to  maintain  a  will  conformable  to 
nature,  you  have  every  security,  every  facility,  you 
have  no  troubles.  For  if  you  wish  to  maintain  what  is  in 
your  own  power  and  is  naturally  free,  and  if  you  are  content 
with  these,  what  else  do  you  care  for  ?  For  who  is  the  mas- 
ter of  such  things?  Who  can  take  them  away?  If  you 
choose  to  be  modest  and  faithful,  who  shall  not  allow  you  to 
be  so  ?  If  you  choose  not  to  be  restrained  or  compelled,  who 
shall  compel  you  to  desire  what  you  think  that  you  ought  not 
to  desire?  who  shall  compel  you  to  avoid  what  you  do  not 
think  fit  to  avoid?  But  what  do  you  say?  The  judge  will 
determine  against  you  something  that  appears  formidable; 
but  that  you  should  also  suffer  in  trying  to  avoid  it,  how  can 
he  do  that  ?  When  then  the  pursuit  of  objects  and  the  avoid- 
ing of  them  are  in  your  power,  what  else  do  you  care  for? 
Let  this  be  your  preface,^  this  your  narrative,  this  your  con- 
firmation, this  your  victory,  this  your  peroration,  this  your 
applause  (or  the  approbation  which  you  will  receive). 

Therefore  Socrates  said  to  one  who  was  reminding  him 
to  prepare  for  his  trial,^  "Do  you  not  think  then  that  I  have 
been  preparing  for  it  all  my  life?"  By  what  kind  of  prepara- 
tion? "I  have  maintained  that  which  was  in  my  own 
power."  How  then?  "I  have  never  done  anything  unjust 
either  in  my  private  or  in  my  public  life." 

But  if  you  wish  to  maintain  externals  also,  your  poor 
body,  your  little  property  and  your  little  estimation,  I  advise 
you  to  make  from  this  moment  all  possible  preparation,  and 
then  consider  both  the  nature  of  your  judge  and  your  adver- 
sary. If  it  is  necessary  to  embrace  his  knees,  embrace  his 
knees ;  if  to  weep,  weep ;  if  to  groan,  groan.  For  when  you 
have  subjected  to  externals  what  is  your  own,  then  be  a  slave 
and  do  not  resist,  and  do  not  sometimes  choose  to  be  a  slave, 

98 


DISCOURSES  99 

and  sometimes  not  choose,  but  with  all  your  mind  be  one  or 
the  other,  either  free  or  a  slave,  either  instructed  or  unin- 
structed,  either  a  well  bred  cock  or  a  mean  one,  either  endure 
to  be  beaten  until  you  die  or  yield  at  once ;  and  let  it  not  hap- 
pen to  you  to  receive  many  stripes  and  then  to  yield.  But  if 
these  things  are  base,  determine  immediately.  Where  is  the 
nature  of  evil  and  good  ?  It  is  where  truth  is :  where  truth  is 
and  where  nature  is,  there  is  caution :  where  truth  is,  there 
is  courage  where  nature  is. 

For  what  do  you  think?  do  you  think  that,  if  Socrates 
had  wished  to  preserve  externals,  he  would  have  come  for- 
ward and  said :  "Anytus  and  Melitus  can  certainly  kill  me, 
but  to  harm  me  they  are  not  able  ?"  Was  he  so  foolish  as  not 
to  see  that  this  way  leads  not  to  the  preservation  of  life  and 
fortune,  but  to  another  end  ?  What  is  the  reason  then  that 
he  takes  no  account  of  his  adversaries,  and  even  irritates 
them  ?  Just  in  the  same  way  my  friend  Heraclitus,  who  had 
a  little  suit  in  Rhodes  about  a  bit  of  land,  and  had  proved  to 
the  judges  (  StKaaraU  )  that  his  case  was  just,  said  when  he 
had  come  to  the  peroration  of  his  speech,  "I  will  neither  in- 
treat  you  nor  do  I  care  what  judgment  you  will  give,  and  it 
is  you  rather  than  I  who  are  on  your  trial."  And  thus  he 
ended  the  business.  What  need  was  there  of  this?  Only 
do  not  intreat;  but  do  not  also  say,  "I  do  not  intreat;"  unless 
there  is  a  fit  occasion  to  irritate  purposely  the  judges,  as  was 
the  case  with  Socrates.  And  you,  if  you  are  preparing  such 
a  peroration,  why  do  you  wait,  why  do  you  obey  the  order 
to  submit  to  trial  ?  For  if  you  wish  to  be  crucified,  wait  and 
the  cross  will  come :  but  if  you  choose  to  submit  and  to  plead 
your  cause  as  well  as  you  can,  you  must  do  what  is  consist- 
ent with  this  object,  provided  you  maintain  what  is  your 
own  (your  proper  character). 

For  this  reason  also  it  is  ridiculous  to  say.  Suggest  some- 
thing to  me'  (tell  me  what  to  do).  What  should  I  suggest 
to  you?  Well,  form  my  mind  so  as  to  accommodate  itself 
to  any  event.  Why  that  is  just  the  same  as  if  a  man  who  is 
ignorant  of  letters  should  say,  "Tell  me  what  to  write  when 
any  name  is  proposed  to  me."  For  if  I  should  tell  him  to 
write  Dion,  and  then  another  should  come  and  propose  to 
him  not  the  name  of  Dion  but  that  of  Theon,  what  will  be 


lOO  EPICTETUS 

done  ?  what  will  he  write  ?  But  if  you  have  practised  writ- 
ing, you  are  also  prepared  to  write  (or  to  do)  any  thing  that 
is  required.  If*  you  are  not,  what  can  I  now  suggest  ?  For 
if  circumstances  require  something  else,  what  will  you  say, 
or  what  will  you  do  ?  Remember  then  this  general  precept 
and  you  will  need  no  suggestion.  But  if  you  gape  after  ex- 
ternals, you  must  of  necessity  ramble  up  and  down  in  obe- 
dience to  the  will  of  your  master.  And  who  is  the  master  ? 
He  who  has  the  power  over  the  things  which  you  seek  to 
gain  or  try  or  avoid. 

NOTES 

*  Epictetus  refers  to  the  rhetorical  divisions  of  a  speech. 

*  Xenophon  has  reported  this  saying  of  Socrates  on  the  authority  of 
Hermogenes. 

'"The  meaning  is,  You  must  not  ask  for  advice  when  you  are  come 
into  a  difficulty,  but  every  man  ought  to  have  such  principles  as  to  be 
ready  on  all  occasions  to  act  as  he  ought;  just  as  he  who  knows  how 
to  write  can  write  any  name  which  is  proposed  to  him." — Wolf. 

*  "The  reader  must  know  that  these  dissertations  were  spoken  ex- 
tempore, and  that  one  thing  after  another  would  come  into  the  thoughts 
of  the  speaker.  So  the  reader  will  not  be  surprised  that  when  the  dis- 
course is  on  the  maintenance  of  firmness  or  freedom  from  perturba- 
tions, Epictetus  should  now  speak  of  philosophical  preparation,  which 
is  most  efficient  for  the  maintenance  of  firmness." — Wolf. 


CHAPTER  III 

TO    THOSE    WHO    RECOMMEND    PERSONS    TO    PHILOSOPHERS 

DIOGENES  said  well  to  one  who  asked  from  him 
letters  of  recommendation,  "That  you  are  a  man, 
he  said,  he  will  know  as  soon  as  he  sees  you;  and 
he  will  know  whether  you  are  good  or  bad,  if  he  is 
by  experience  skilful  to  distinguish  the  good  and  the  bad; 
but  if  he  is  without  experience,  he  will  never  know,  if  I  write 
to  him  ten  thousand  times."^  For  it  is  just  the  same  as  if 
a  drachma  (a  piece  of  silver  money)  asked  to  be  recom- 
mended to  a  person  to  be  tested.  If  he  is  skilful  in  testing 
silver,  he  will  know  what  you  are,  for  you  (the  drachma) 
will  recommend  yourself.  We  ought  then  in  life  also  to 
have  some  skill  as  in  the  case  of  silver  coin  that  a  man  may 
be  able  to  say  like  the  judge  of  silver.  Bring  me  any 
drachma  and  I  will  test  it.  But  in  the  case  of  syllogisms, 
I  would  say,  Bring  any  man  that  you  please,  and  I  will  dis- 
tinguish for  you  the  man  who  knows  how  to  resolve  syllo- 
gisms and  the  man  who  does  not.  Why  ?  Because  I  know 
how  to  resolve  syllogisms.  I  have  the  power,  which  a  man 
must  have  who  is  able  to  discover  those  who  have  the  power 
of  resolving  syllogisms.  But  in  life  how  do  I  act  ?  At  one 
time  I  call  a  thing  good,  and  at  another  time  bad.  What  is 
the  reason?  The  contrary  to  that  which  is  in  the  case  of 
syllogisms,  ignorance  and  inexperience. 

NOTE 

*  Mrs.  Carter  says  "This  is  one  of  the  many  extravagant  refinements 
of  the  philosophers;  and  might  lead  persons  into  very  dangerous  mis- 
takes, if  it  was  laid  down  as  a  maxim  in  ordinary  life."  I  think  that 
Mrs.  Carter  has  not  seen  the  meaning  of  Epictetus.  The  philosopher 
will  discover  the  man's  character  by  trying  him,  as  the  assayer  tries  the 
silver  by  a  test. 

Cicero  (De  legibus,  i.  9)  says  that  the  face  expresses  the  hidden  char- 
acter. Euripides  (Medea,  518)  says  better,  that  no  mark  is  impressed 
on  the  body  by  which  we  can  distinguish  the  good  man  from  the  bad. 
Shakespere  says 

"There's  no  art 
To  find  the  mind's  construction  in  the  face.'* 

Macbeth,  act  i.  so.  4. 

vn 


CHAPTER  IV 

AGAINST  A  PERSON  WHO  HAD  ONCE  BEEN  DETECTED  IN 
ADULTERY 

AS  Epictetus  was  saying  that  man  is  formed  for  fidelity, 
and  that  he  who  subverts  fidelity  subverts  the  pecu- 
liar characteristic  of  men,  there  entered  one  of  those 
who  are  considered  to  be  men  of  letters,  who  had 
once  been  detected  in  adultery  in  the  city.  Then  Epictetus 
continued,  But  if  we  lay  aside  this  fidelity  for  which  we  are 
formed  and  make  designs  against  our  neighbour's  wife,  what 
are  we  doing?  What  else  but  destroying  and  overthrow- 
ing? Whom,  the  man  of  fidelity,  the  man  of  modesty,  the 
man  of  sanctity.  Is  this  all  ?  And  are  we  not  overthrow- 
ing neighbourhood,  and  friendship,  and  the  community ;  and 
in  what  place  are  we  putting  ourselves  ?  How  shall  I  con- 
sider you,  man  ?  As  a  neighbour,  as  a  friend  ?  What  kind 
of  one  ?  As  a  citizen  ?  Wherein  shall  I  trust  you  ?  So  if 
you  were  an  utensil  so  worthless  that  a  man  could  not  use 
you,  you  would  be  pitched  out  on  the  dung  heaps,  and  no 
man  would  pick  you  up.  But  if  being  a  man  you  are  unable 
to  fill  any  place  which  befits  a  man,  what  shall  we  do  with 
you?  For  suppose  that  you  can  not  hold  the  place  of  a 
friend,  can  you  hold  the  place  of  a  slave?  And  who  will 
trust  you?  Are  you  not  then  content  that  you  also  should 
be  pitched  somewhere  on  a  dung  heap,  as  a  useless  utensil, 
and  a  bit  of  dung  ?  Then  will  you  say,  no  man  cares  for  me, 
a  man  of  letters?  They  do  not,  because  you  are  bad  and 
useless.  It  is  just  as  if  the  wasps  complained  because  no 
man  cares  for  them,  but  all  fly  from  them,  and  if  a  man  can, 
he  strikes  them  and  knocks  them  down.  You  have  such  a 
sting  that  you  throw  into  trouble  and  pain  any  man  that  you 
wound  with  it.  What  would  you  have  us  do  with  you? 
You  have  no  place  where  you  can  be  put. 

"What  then,  are  not  women  common  by  nature  ?"^  So  I 
say  also ;  for  a  little  pig  is  common  to  all  the  invited  guests, 
but  when  the  portions  have  been  distributed,  go,  if  you  think 


DISCOURSES  103 

it  right,  and  snatch  up  the  portion  of  him  who  reclines  next 
to  you,  or  slily  steal  it,  or  place  your  hand  down  by  it  and 
lay  hold  of  it,  and  if  you  can  tear  away  a  bit  of  the  meat, 
grease  your  fingers  and  lick  them.  A  fine  companion  over 
cups,  and  Socratic  guest  indeed!  Well,  is  not  the  theatre 
common  to  the  citizens?  When  then  they  have  taken  their 
seats,  come,  if  you  think  proper,  and  eject  one  of  them.  In 
this  way  women  also  are  common  by  nature.  When  then 
the  legislator,  like  the  master  of  a  feast,  has  disturbed  them, 
will  you  not  also  look  for  your  own  portion  and  not  filch  and 
handle  what  belongs  to  another.  "  But  I  am  a  man  of  letters 
and  understand  Archedemus."  ^  Understand  Archedemus 
then,  and  be  an  adulterer,  and  faithless,  and  instead  of  a 
man,  be  a  wolf  or  an  ape ;  for  what  is  the  difference  ?  * 

NOTES 

*  It  is  not  clear  what  is  meant  by  women  being  common  by  nature  in 
any  rational  sense.  Zeno  and  his  school  said  "it  is  their  opinion  also 
that  the  women  should  be  common  among  the  wise,  so  that  any  man 
should  use  any  woman,  as  Zeno  says  in  his  Polity,  and  Chrysippus  in 
the  book  on  Polity,  and  Diogenes  the  Cynic,  and  Plato;  and  we  shall 
love  all  the  children  equally  like  fathers,  and  the  jealousy  about  adultery 
will  be  removed."  These  wise  men  knew  little  about  human  nature,  if 
they  taught  such  doctrines. 

*  Archedemus  was  a  Stoic  philosopher  of  Tarsus.  We  know  little 
about  him. 

*  A  man  may  be  a  philosopher  or  pretend  to  be ;  and  at  the  same  time 
he  may  be  a  beast. 


CHAPTER  V 

HOW    MAGNANIMITY   IS    CONSISTENT   WITH    CARE 

THINGS  themselves  (material)  are  indifferent;^  but  the 
use  of  them  is  not  indifferent.  How  then  shall  a 
man  preserve  firmness  and  tranquillity,  and  at  the 
same  time  be  careful  and  neither  rash  nor  negligent  ? 
If  he  imitates  those  who  play  at  dice.  The  counters  are  in- 
different; the  dice  are  indifferent.  How  do  I  know  what 
the  cast  will  be?  But  to  use  carefully  and  dexterously  the 
cast  of  the  dice,  this  is  my  business,^  Thus  then  in  life  also 
the  chief  business  is  this:  distinguish  and  separate  things, 
and  say,  Externals  are  not  in  my  power :  will  is  in  my  power. 
Where  shall  I  seek  the  good  and  the  bad?  Within,  in  the 
things  which  are  my  own.  But  in  what  does  not  belong 
to  you  call  nothing  either  good  or  bad,  or  profit  or  damage 
or  any  thing  of  the  kind. 

What  then?  Should  we  use  such  things  carelessly?  In 
no  way :  for  this  on  the  other  hand  is  bad  for  the  faculty  of 
the  will,  and  consequently  against  nature;  but  we  should 
act  carefully  because  the  use  is  not  indifferent,  and  we  should 
also  act  with  firmness  and  freedom  from  perturbations  be- 
cause the  material  is  indifferent.  For  where  the  material  is 
not  indifferent,  there  no  man  can  hinder  me  nor  compel  me. 
Where  I  can  be  hindered  and  compelled,  the  obtaining  of 
those  things  is  not  in  my  power,  nor  is  it  good  or  bad ;  but 
the  use  is  either  bad  or  good,  and  the  use  is  in  my  power. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  mingle  and  to  bring  together  these  two 
things,  the  carefulness  of  him  who  is  affected  by  the  mat- 
ter (or  things  about  him)  and  the  firmness  of  him  who  has 
no  regard  for  it;  but  it  is  not  impossible:  and  if  it  is,  happi- 
ness is  impossible.  But  we  should  act  as  we  do  in  the  case 
of  a  voyage.  What  can  I  do  ?  I  can  choose  the  master  of 
the  ship,  the  sailors,  the  day,  the  opportunity.  Then  comes 
a  storm.  What  more  have  I  to  care  for?  for  my  part  is 
done.  The  business  belongs  to  another,  the  master. — But 
the  ship  is  sinking — what  then  have  I  to  do  ?     I  do  the  only 

104 


DISCOURSES  105 

thing  that  I  can,  not  to  be  drowned  full  of  fear,  nor  scream- 
ing nor  blaming  God,  but  knowing  that  what  has  been  pro- 
duced must  also  perish :  for  I  am  not  an  immortal  being,  but 
a  man,  a  part  of  the  whole,  as  an  hour  is  a  part  of  the  day : 
I  must  be  present  like  the  hour,  and  past  like  the  hour. 
What  difference  then  does  it  make  to  me,  how  I  pass  away, 
whether  by  being  suffocated  or  by  a  fever,  for  I  must  pass 
through  some  such  means? 

This  is  just  what  you  will  see  those  doing  who  play  at 
ball  skilfully.  No  one  cares  about  the  balP  as  being  good 
or  bad,  but  about  throwing  and  catching  it.  In  this  there- 
fore is  the  skill,  in  this  the  art,  the  quickness,  the  judgment, 
so  that  even  if  I  spread  out  my  lap  I  may  not  be  able  to 
catch  it,  and  another,  if  I  throw,  may  catch  the  ball.  But  if 
with  perturbation  and  fear  we  receive  or  throw  the  ball,  what 
kind  of  play  is  it  then,  and  wherein  shall  a  man  be  steady, 
and  how  shall  a  man  see  the  order  in  the  game?  But  one 
will  say,  "Throw ;"  or  "Do  not  throw ;"  and  another  will  say, 
"You  have  thrown  once."     This  is  quarrelling,  not  play. 

Socrates  then  knew  how  to  play  at  ball.  How?  By 
using  pleasantry  in  the  court  where  he  was  tried.  "Tell  me," 
he  says,  "Anytus,  how  do  you  say  that  I  do  not  believe  in 
God.  The  Daemons  (Saijuovei) ,  who  are  they,  think  you?  Are 
they  not  sons  of  Gods,  or  compounded  of  gods  and  men  ?" 
When  Anytus  admitted  this,  Socrates  said,  "Who  then,  think 
you,  can  believe  that  there  are  mules  (half  asses),  but  not 
asses."  And  this  he  said  as  if  he  were  playing  at  ball.*  And 
what  was  the  ball  in  this  case?  Life,  chains,  banishment,  a 
draught  of  poison,  separation  from  wife  and  leaving  chil- 
dren orphans.  These  were  the  things  which  he  was  playing ; 
but  still  he  did  play  and  threw  the  ball  skilfully.  So  we 
should  do :  we  must  employ  all  the  care  of  the  players,  but 
show  the  same  indifference  about  the  ball.  For  we  ought 
by  all  means  to  apply  our  art  to  some  external  material,  not 
as  valuing  the  material,  but,  whatever  it  may  be,  showing  our 
art  in  it.  Thus  too  the  weaver  does  not  make  wool,  but  ex- 
ercises his  art  upon  such  as  he  receives.  Another  gives  you 
food  and  property  and  is  able  to  take  them  away  and  your 
poor  body  also.  When  then  you  have  received  the  material, 
work  on  it.     If  then  you  come  out  (of  the  trial)  without 


l66  EPICTETUS 

having  suffered  anything,  all  who  meet  you  will  congratulate 
you  on  your  escape ;  but  he  who  knows  how  to  look  at  such 
things,  if  he  shall  see  that  you  have  behaved  properly  in  the 
matter,  will  commend  you  and  be  pleased  with  you;  and  if 
he  shall  find  that  you  owe  your  escape  to  any  want  of  proper 
behaviour,  he  will  do  the  contrary.  For  where  rejoicing  is 
reasonable,  there  also  is  congratulation  reasonable. 

How  then  is  it  said  that  some  external  things  are  accord- 
ing to  nature  and  others  contrary  to  nature?  It  is  said  as 
it  might  be  said  if  we  were  separated  from  union  (or  so- 
ciety) :  for  to  the  foot  I  shall  say  that  it  is  according  to  na- 
ture for  it  to  be  clean ;  but  if  you  take  it  as  a  foot  and  as  a 
thing  not  detached  (independent),  it  will  befit  it  both  to  step 
into  the  mud  and  tread  on  thorns,  and  sometimes  to  be  cut 
off  for  the  good  of  the  whole  body ;  otherwise  it  is  no  longer 
a  foot.  We  should  think  in  some  such  way  about  ourselves 
also.  What  are  you?  A  man.  If  you  consider  yourself 
as  detached  from  other  men,  it  is  according  to  nature  to  live 
to  old  age,  to  be  rich,  to  be  healthy.  But  if  you  consider 
yourself  as  a  man  and  a  part  of  a  certain  whole,  it  is  for  the 
sake  of  that  whole  that  at  one  time  you  should  be  sick,  at 
another  time  take  a  voyage  and  run  into  danger,  and  at  an- 
other time  be  in  want,  and  in  some  cases  die  prematurely. 
Why  then  are  you  troubled  ?  Do  you  not  know,  that  as  a  foot 
is  no  longer  a  foot  if  it  is  detached  from  the  body,  so  you  are 
no  longer  a  man  if  you  are  separated  from  other  men.  For 
what  is  a  man  ?  A  part  of  a  state,  of  that  first  which  con- 
sists of  Gods  and  of  men ;  then  of  that  which  is  called  next 
to  it,  which  is  a  small  image  of  the  universal  state.  What 
then  must  I  be  brought  to  trial ;  must  another  have  a  fever, 
another  sail  on  the  sea,  another  die,  and  another  be  con- 
demned ?  Yes,  for  it  is  impossible  in  such  a  body,  in  such  a 
universe  of  things,  among  so  many  living  together,  that  such 
things  should  not  happen,  some  to  one  and  others  to  others. 
It  is  your  duty  then  since  you  are  come  here,  to  say  what  you 
ought,  to  arrange  these  things  as  it  is  fit.*  Then  some  one 
says,  "I  shall  charge  you  with  doing  me  wrong."  Much 
good  may  it  do  you :  I  have  done  my  part ;  but  whether  you 
also  have  done  yours,  you  must  look  to  that;  for  there  is 
some  danger  of  this  too,  that  it  may  escape  your  notice. 


DISCOUSES  107 

NOTES 

'The  materials  (vXai)  on  which  man  works  are  neither  good  nor 
bad,  and  so  they  are,  as  Epictetus  names  them,  indifferent.  But  the 
use  of  things,  or  of  material,  is  not  indifferent.  They  may  be  used  well 
or  ill,  conformably  to  nature  or  not. 

'  Terence  says  (Adelphi,  iv.  7) — 

Si  illud,  quod  est  maxime  opus,  jactu  non  cadit, 
Illud  quod  cecidit  forte,  id  arte  ut  corrigas. 

'Dexterously'   is   'arte,'  tsxvikSx;  in   Epictetus. — ^Upton. 

*  The  word  is  dpitaa-rov ,  which  was  also  used  by  the  Romans.  One 
threw  the  ball  and  the  other  caught  it.  Chrysippus  used  this  simile  of 
a  ball  in  speaking  of  giving  and  receiving  (Seneca,  "De  Beneficiis," 
ii.  17).  Martial  has  the  word  ("Epigrams"  iv.  19)  "Sive  harpasta 
manu  pulverulenta  rapis" ;  and  elsewhere. 

*  In  Plato's  "Apology,"  Socrates  addresses  Meletus ;  and  he  says, 
it  would  be  equally  absurd  if  a  man  should  believe  that  there  are  foals 
of  horses  and  asses,  and  should  not  believe  that  there  are  horses  and 
asses.  But  Socrates  says  nothing  of  mules,  for  the  word  mules  in  some 
texts  of  the  "Apology"  is  manifestly  wrong. 

'  He  tells  some  imaginary  person,  who  hears  him,  that  since  he  is 
come  into  the  world,  he  must  do  his  duty  in  it 


CHATPER  VI 

OF  INDIFFERENCE 

THE  hypothetical  proposition  is  indifferent :  the  judg- 
ment about  it  is  not  indifferent,  but  it  is  either 
knowledge  or  opinion  or  error.  Thus  life  is  indif- 
ferent :  the  use  is  not  indifferent.  When  any  man  then 
tells  you  that  these  things  also  are  indifferent,  do  not  become 
negligent;  and  when  a  man  invites  you  to  be  careful  (about 
such  things),  do  not  become  abject  and  struck  with  admira- 
tion of  material  things.  And  it  is  good  for  you  to  know 
your  own  preparation  and  power,  that  in  those  matters  where 
you  have  not  been  prepared,  you  may  keep  quiet,  and  not  be 
vexed,  if  others  have  the  advantage  over  you.  For  you  too 
in  syllogisms  will  claim  to  have  the  advantage  over  them; 
and  if  others  should  be  vexed  at  this,  you  will  console  them 
by  saying,  "I  have  learned  them,  and  you  have  not."  Thus 
also  where  there  is  need  of  any  practice,  seek  not  that  which 
is  acquired  from  the  need  (of  such  practice),  but  yield  in 
that  matter  to  those  who  have  had  practice,  and  be  yourself 
content  with  firmness  of  mind. 

Go  and  salute  a  certain  person.  How?  Not  meanly. — 
But  I  have  been  shut  out,  for  I  have  not  learned  to  make 
my  way  through  the  window;  and  when  I  have  found  the 
door  shut,  I  must  either  come  back  or  enter  through  the 
window. — But  still  speak  to  him. — In  what  way?  Not 
meanly.  But  suppose  that  you  have  not  got  what  you 
wanted.  Was  this  your  business,  and  not  his  ?  Why  then 
do  you  claim  that  which  belongs  to  another?  Always  re- 
member what  is  your  own,  and  what  belongs  to  another ;  and 
you  will  not  be  disturbed.  Chrysippus  therefore  said  well. 
So  long  as  future  things  are  uncertain,  I  always  cling  to 
those  which  are  more  adapted  to  the  conservation  of  that 
which  is  according  to  nature ;  for  God  himself  has  given  me 
the  faculty  of  such  choice.  But  if  I  knew  that  it  was  fated 
(in  the  order  of  things)  for  me  to  be  sick,  I  would  even 
move  towards  it;  for  the  foot  also,  if  it  had  intelligence, 

xo8 


DISCOURSES  109 

would  move  to  go  into  the  mud.  For  why  are  ears  of  corn 
produced?  Is  it  not  that  they  may  become  dry?  And  do 
they  not  become  dry  that  they  may  be  reaped?^  for  they  are 
not  separated  from  communion  with  other  things.  If  then 
they  had  perception,  ought  they  to  wisli  never  to  be  reaped  ? 
But  this  is  a  curse  upon  ears  of  corn,  to  be  never  reaped.  So 
we  must  know  that  in  the  case  of  men  too  it  is  a  curse  not  to 
die,  just  the  same  as  not  to  be  ripened  and  not  to  be  reaped. 
But  since  we  must  be  reaped,  and  we  also  know  that  we  are 
reaped,  we  are  vexed  at  it ;  for  we  neither  know  what  we  are 
nor  have  we  studied  what  belongs  to  man,  as  those  who 
have  studied  horses  know  what  belongs  to  horses.  But 
Chry Santas^  when  he  was  going  to  strike  the  enemy  checked 
himself  when  he  heard  the  trumpet  sounding  a  retreat:  so 
it  seemed  better  to  him  to  obey  the  general's  command  than 
to  follow  his  own  inclination.  But  not  one  of  us  chooses, 
even  when  necessity  summons,  readily  to  obey  it,  but  weep- 
ing and  groaning  we  suffer  what  we  do  suffer,  and  we  call 
them  circumstances.  What  kind  of  circumstances,  man? 
If  you  give  the  name  of  circumstances  to  the  things  which 
are  around  you,  all  things  are  circumstances;  but  if  you  call 
hardships  by  this  name,  what  hardship  is  there  in  the  dying 
of  that  which  has  been  produced  ?  But  that  which  destroys 
is  either  a  sword,  or  a  wheel,  or  a  sea,  or  a  tile,  or  a  tyrant. 
Why  do  you  care  about  the  way  of  going  down  to  Hades? 
All  ways  are  equal.*  But  if  you  will  listen  to  the  truth,  the 
way  which  the  tyrant  sends  you  is  shorter.  A  tyrant  never 
killed  a  man  in  six  months :  but  a  fever  is  often  a  year  about 
it.  All  these  things  are  only  sound  and  the  noise  of  empty 
names. 

I  am  in  danger  of  my  life  from  Caesar.  And  am  not  I 
in  danger  who  dwell  in  Nicopolis,  where  there  are  so  many 
earthquakes :  and  when  you  are  crossing  the  Hadriatic,  what 
hazard  do  you  run  ?  Is  it  not  the  hazard  of  your  life  ?  But 
I  am  in  danger  also  as  to  opinion.  Do  you  mean  your  own  ? 
how  ?  For  who  can  compel  you  to  have  any  opinion  which 
you  do  not  choose?  But  is  it  as  to  another  man's  opinion? 
and  what  kind  of  danger  is  yours,  if  others  have  false  opin- 
ions? But  I  am  in  danger  of  being  banished.  What  is  it 
to  be  banished?     To  be  somewhere  else  than  at  Rome? 


I  lO  EPICTETUS 

Yes :  what  then  if  I  should  be  sent  to  Gyara  ?  If  that  suits 
you,  you  will  go  there;  but  if  it  does  not,  you  can  go  to  an- 
other place  instead  of  Gyara,  whither  he  also  will  go,  who 
sends  you  to  Gyara,  whether  he  choose  or  not.  Why  then 
do  you  go  up  to  Rome  as  if  it  were  something  great  ?  It  is 
not  worth  all  this  preparation,  that  an  ingenuous  youth 
should  say,  it  was  not  worth  while  to  have  heard  so  much 
and  to  have  written  so  much  and  to  have  sat  so  long  by  the 
side  of  an  old  man  who  is  not  worth  much.  Only  remem- 
ber that  division  by  which  your  own  and  not  your  own  are 
distinguished:  never  claim  any  thing  which  belongs  to 
others,  A  tribunal  and  a  prison  are  each  a  place,  one  high 
and  the  other  low;  but  the  will  can  be  maintained  equal,  if 
you  choose  to  maintain  it  equal  in  each.  And  we  shall  then 
be  imitators  of  Socrates,  when  we  are  able  to  write  paeans 
in  prison.*^  But  in  our  present  disposition,  consider  if  we 
could  endure  in  prison  another  person  saying  to  us,  "Would 
you  like  me  to  read  Paeans  to  you?"  "Why  do  you  trouble  me? 
do  you  not  know  the  evils  which  hold  me  ?  Can  I  in  such  cir- 
cumstances (listen  to  paeans)  ?"  "What  circumstances  ?"  "I 
am  going  to  die."  "And  will  other  men  be  immortal  ?"  , 

NOTES 

*  This  discussion  is  with  a  young  philosopher  who,  intending  to  return 
from  Nicopolis  to  Rome,  feared  the  tyranny  of  Domitian,  who  was  par- 
ticularly severe  towards  philosophers. 

The  title  "of  indifference"  means  "of  the  indifference  of  things;"  of 
the  things  which  are  neither  good  nor  bad. 

'  Epictetus  alludes  to  the  verses  from  the  Hypsipyle  of  Euripides. 
Compare  Antoninus  (vii.  40)  :  "Life  must  be  reaped  like  the  ripe  ears 
of  corn :  one  man  is  born :  another  dies."  Cicero  (Tuscul.  Disp.  iii. 
25)  has  translated  six  verses  from  Euripides,  and  among  them  are 
these  two: 

tum  vita  omnibus 
Metenda  ut  fruges :    sic  jubet  necessitas. 

•The  story  is  in  Xenophon's  Cyropsedia  (IV,  near  the  beginning) 
where  Cyrus  says  that  he  called  Chrysantas  by  name.  Epictetus,  as 
Upton  remarks,  quotes  from  memory. 

*  So  Anaxagoras  said  that  the  road  to  the  other  world  (ad  inferos)  is 
the  same  from  all  places.  (Cicero,  Tusc.  Disp.  i.  43.)  What  follows  is 
one  of  the  examples  of  extravagant  assertion  in  Epictetus.  A  tyrant 
may  kill  by  a  slow  death  as  a  fever  does.     I  suppose  that  Epictetus 


DISCOURSES  1 1 1 

would  have  some  answer  to  that.  Except  to  a  Stoic  the  ways  to  death 
are  not  indifferent:  some  ways  of  dying  are  painful,  and  even  he  who 
can  endure  with  fortitude,  would  prefer  an  easy  death. 

•  Diogenes  Laertius  reports  in  his  life  of  Socrates  that  he  wrote  in 
prison  a  Paean,  and  he  gives  the  first  line  which  contains  an  address  to 
Apollo  and  Artemis. 


CHAPTER  VII 

HOW  WE  OUGHT  TO  USE  DIVINATION 

THROUGH  an  unreasonable  regard  to  divination  many 
of  us  omit  many  duties.^  For  what  more  can  the 
diviner  see  than  death  or  danger  or  disease,  or  gen- 
erally things  of  that  kind?  If  then  I  must  expose 
myself  to  danger  for  a  friend,  and  if  it  is  my  duty  even  to  die 
for  him,  what  need  have  I  then  for  divination  ?  Have  I  not 
within  me  a  diviner  who  has  told  me  the  nature  of  good  and 
of  evil,  and  has  explained  to  me  the  signs  (or  marks)  of 
both?  What  need  have  I  then  to  consult  the  viscera  of  vic- 
tims or  the  flight  of  birds,  and  why  do  I  submit  when  he 
says,  "It  is  for  your  interest?"  For  does  he  know  what  is 
for  my  interest,  does  he  know  what  is  good ;  and  as  he  has 
learned  the  signs  of  the  viscera,  has  he  also  learned  the  signs 
of  good  and  evil?  For  if  he  knows  the  signs  of  these,  he 
knows  the  signs  both  of  the  beautiful  and  of  the  ugly,  and  of 
the  just  and  of  the  unjust.  Do  you  tell  me,  man,  what  is 
the  thing  which  is  signified  for  me ;  is  it  life  or  death,  pov- 
erty or  wealth  ?  But  whether  these  things  are  for  my  inter- 
est or  whether  they  are  not,  I  do  not  intend  to  ask  you. 
Why  don't  you  give  your  opinion  on  matters  of  grammar, 
and  why  do  you  give  it  here  about  things  on  which  we  are 
all  in  error  and  disputing  with  one  another?^  The  woman 
therefore,  who  intended  to  send  by  a  vessel  a  month's  pro- 
visions to  Gratilla^  in  her  banishment,  made  a  good  answer 
to  him  who  said  that  Domitian  would  seize  what  she  sent,  I 
would  rather,  she  replied,  that  Domitian  should  seize  all  than 
that  I  should  not  send  it. 

What  then  leads  us  to  frequent  use  of  divination  ?  Cow- 
ardice, the  dread  of  what  will  happen.  This  is  the  reason 
why  we  flatter  the  diviners.  Pray,  master,  shall  I  succeed 
to  the  property  of  my  father  ?  Let  us  see :  let  us  sacrifice  on 
the  occasion — Yes,  master,  as  fortune  chooses. — When  he 
has  said,  You  shall  succeed  to  the  inheritance,  we  thank  him 

112 


DISCOURSES  1 1 3 

as  if  we  received  the  inheritance  from  him.      The  conse- 
quence is  that  they  play  upon  us,* 

What  then  should  we  do?  We  ought  to  come  (to  divinia- 
tion)  without  desire  or  aversion,  as  the  wayfarer  asks  of  the 
man  whom  he  meets  which  of  two  roads  leads  (to  his  jour- 
ney's end),  without  any  desire  for  that  which  leads  to  the 
right  rather  than  to  the  left,  for  he  has  no  wish  to  go  by  any 
road  except  the  road  which  leads  (to  his  end).  In  the  same 
way  ought  we  to  come  to  Grod  also  as  a  guide ;  as  we  use  our 
eyes,  not  asking  them  to  show  us  rather  such  things  as  we 
wish,  but  receiving  the  appearances  of  things  such  as  the 
eyes  present  them  to  us.  But  now  we  trembling  take  the 
augur  (bird  interpreter)  by  the  hand,  and  while  we  invoke 
God  we  intreat  the  augur,  and  say  "Master  have  mercy  on 
me;  suffer  me  to  come  safe  out  of  this  difficulty."  Wretch, 
would  you  have  then  any  thing  other  than  what  is  best  ?  Is 
there  then  any  thing  better  than  what  pleases  God  ?  Why 
do  you,  as  far  as  in  your  power,  corrupt  your  judge  and  lead 
astray  your  adviser  ? 

NOTES 

^Divination  was  a  great  part  of  ancient  religion,  and,  as  Epictetus 
says,  it  led  men  "to  omit  many  duties."  In  a  certain  sense  there  was 
some  meaning  in  it.  If  it  is  true  that  those  who  believe  in  God  can 
see  certain  signs  in  the  administration  of  the  world  by  which  they  can 
judge  what  their  behaviour  ought  to  be,  they  can  learn  what  their 
duties  are.  If  these  signs  are  misunderstood,  or  if  they  are  not  seen 
right,  men  may  be  governed  by  an  abject  superstition.  So  the  external 
forms  of  any  religion  may  become  the  means  of  corruption  and  of  human 
debasement,  and  the  true  indications  of  God's  will  may  be  neglected. 
Upton  compares  Lucan  (ix.  572),  who  sometimes  said  a  few  good 
things. 

'  A  man  who  gives  his  opinion  on  grammar  gives  an  opinion  on  a 
thing  of  which  many  know  something.  A  man  who  gives  his  opinion 
on  divination  or  on  future  events,  gives  an  opinion  on  things  of  which 
we  all  know  nothing.  When  then  a  man  affects  to  instruct  on  things 
unknown,  we  may  ask  him  to  give  his  opinion  on  things  which  are 
known,  and  so  we  may  learn  what  kind  of  man  he  is. 

'  Gratilla  was  a  lady  of  rank,  who  was  banished  from  Rome  and 
Italy  by  Domitian. 

*  As  knavish  priests  have  often  played  on  the  fears  and  hopes  of  the 
superstitious. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WHAT  IS  THE  NATURE  OF  THE  GOOD* 

GOD  is  beneficial.  But  the  Good  also  is  beneficial.^ 
It  is  consistent  then  that  where  the  nature  of  God 
is,  there  also  the  nature  of  the  good  should  be. 
What  then  is  the  nature  of  God  ?^  Flesh  ?  Cer- 
tainly not.  An  estate  in  land?  By  no  means.  Fame? 
No.  Is  it  intelligence,  knowledge,  right  reason?  Yes. 
Herein  then  simply  seek  the  nature  of  the  good;  for  I  sup- 
pose that  you  do  not  seek  it  in  a  plant.  No.  Do  you  seek 
it  in  an  irrational  animal?  No.  If  then  you  seek  it  in  a 
rational  animal,  why  do  you  still  seek  it  any  where  except  in 
the  superiority  of  rational  over  irrational  minds?*  Now 
plants  have  not  even  the  power  of  using  appearances,  and 
for  this  reason  you  do  not  apply  the  term  good  to  them. 
The  good  then  requires  the  use  of  appearances.  Does  it  re- 
quire this  use  only  ?  For  if  you  say  that  it  requires  this  use 
only,  say  that  the  good,  and  that  happiness  and  unhappiness 
are  in  irrational  animals  also.  But  you  do  not  say  this,  and 
you  do  right ;  for  if  they  possess  even  in  the  highest  degree 
the  use  of  appearances,  yet  they  have  not  the  faculty  of  un- 
derstanding the  use  of  appearances ;  and  there  is  good  reason 
for  this,  for  they  exist  for  the  purpose  of  serving  others,  and 
they  exercise  no  superiority.  For  the  ass,  I  suppose,  does 
not  exist  for  any  superiority  over  others.  No ;  but  because 
we  had  need  of  a  back  which  is  able  to  bear  something ;  and 
in  truth  we  had  need  also  of  his  being  able  to  walk,  and  for 
this  reason  he  received  also  the  faculty  of  making  use  of  ap- 
pearances, for  otherwise  he  would  not  have  been  able  to 
walk.  And  here  then  the  matter  stopped.  For  if  he  had 
also  received  the  faculty  of  comprehending  the  use  of  appear- 
ances, it  is  plain  that  consistently  with  reason  he  would  not 
then  have  been  subjected  to  us,  nor  would  he  have  done  us 
these  services,  but  he  would  have  been  equal  to  us  and  like 
to  us. 

Will  you  not  then  seek  the  nature  of  good  in  the  ra- 

114 


DISCOURSES  115 

tional  animal?  for  if  it  is  not  there,  you  will  not  choose  to 
say  that  it  exists  in  any  other  thing  (plant  or  animal). 
What  then?  are  not  plants  and  animals  also  the  works  of 
God?  They  are;  buttheyarenot  superior  things,  nor  yet  parts 
of  the  Gods  ?  But  you  are  a  superior  thing ;  you  are  a  portion 
separated  from  the  deity ;  you  have  in  yourself  a  certain  por- 
tion of  him.  Why  then  are  you  ignorant  of  your  own  noble 
descent  ?**  Why  do  you  not  know  whence  you  came  ?  will  you 
not  remember  when  you  are  eating,  who  you  are  who  eat 
and  whom  you  feed?  When  you  are  in  conjunction  with  a 
woman,  will  you  not  remember  who  you  are  who  do  this 
thing?  When  you  are  in  social  intercourse,  when  you  are 
exercising  yourself,  when  you  are  engaged  in  discussion, 
know  you  not  that  you  are  nourishing  a  god,  that  you  are 
exercising  a  god?  Wretch,  you  are  carrying  about  a  god 
with  you,  and  you  know  it  not.®  Do  you  think  that  I  mean 
some  God  of  silver  or  of  gold,  and  external  ?  You  carry  him 
within  yourself,  and  you  perceive  not  that  you  are  polluting 
him  by  impure  thoughts  and  dirty  deeds.  And  if  an  image 
of  God  were  present,  you  would  not  dare  to  do  any  of  the 
things  which  you  are  doing :  but  when  God  himself  is  present 
within  and  sees  all  and  hears  all,  you  are  not  ashamed  of 
thinking  and  doing  such  things,  ignorant  as  you  are  of  your 
own  nature  and  subject  to  the  anger  of  God.  Then  why 
do  we  fear  when  we  are  sending  a  young  man  from  the 
school  into  active  life,  lest  he  should  do  anything  improperly, 
eat  improperly,  have  improper  intercourse  with  women ;  and 
lest  the  rags  in  which  he  is  wrapped  should  debase  him,  lest 
fine  garments  should  make  him  proud?  This  youth  (if  he 
acts  thus)  does  not  know  his  own  God:  he  knows  not  with 
whom  he  sets  out  (into  the  world).  But  can  we  endure 
when  he  says  "  I  wish  I  had  you  (God)  with  me."  Have  you 
not  God  with  you  ?  and  do  you  seek  for  any  other,  when  you 
have  him  ?  or  will  God  tell  you  any  thing  else  than  this  ?  If 
you  were  a  statue  of  Phidias,  either  Athena  or  Zeus,  you 
would  think  both  of  yourself  and  of  the  artist,  and  if  you 
had  any  understanding  (power  of  perception)  you  would 
try  to  do  nothing  unworthy  of  him  who  made  you  or  of 
yourself,  and  try  not  to  appear  in  an  unbecoming  dress  (at- 
titude) to  those  who  look  on  you.     But  now  because  Zeus 


Il6  EPICTETUS 

has  made  you,  for  this  reason  do  you  care  not  how  you 
shall  appear?  And  yet  is  the  artist  (in  the  one  case)  like  the 
artist  in  the  other  ?  or  the  work  in  the  one  case  like  the  other  ? 
And  what  work  of  an  artist,  for  instance,  has  in  itself  the 
faculties,  which  the  artist  shows  in  making  it?  Is  it  not 
marble  or  bronze,  or  gold  or  ivory  ?  and  the  Athena  of  Phi- 
dias when  she  has  once  extended  the  hand  and  received  in  it 
the  figure  of  Victory"  stands  in  that  attitude  for  ever.  But 
the  works  of  God  have  power  of  motion,  they  breathe,  they 
have  the  faculty  of  using  the  appearances  of  things,  and  the 
power  of  examining  them.  Being  the  work  of  such  an  artist 
do  you  dishonour  him  ?  And  what  shall  I  say,  not  only  that 
he  made  you,  but  also  entrusted  you  to  yourself  and  made 
you  a  deposit  to  yourself  ?  Will  you  not  think  of  this  too, 
but  do  you  also  dishonour  your  guardianship  ?  But  if  God 
had  entrusted  an  orphan  to  you,  would  you  thus  neglect  him  ? 
He  has  delivered  yourself  to  your  own  care,  and  says,  "I 
had  no  one  fitter  to  intrust  him  to  than  yourself;  keep  him 
for  me  such  as  he  is  by  nature,  modest,  faithful,  erect,  un- 
terrified,  free  from  passion  and  perturbation."  And  then 
you  do  not  keep  him  such. 

But  some  will  say,  "Whence  has  this  fellow  got  the  arro- 
gance which  he  displays  and  these  supercilious  looks?"  I 
have  not  yet  so  much  gravity  as  befits  a  philosopher;  for  I 
do  not  yet  feel  confidence  in  what  I  have  learned  and  in  what 
I  have  assented  to :  I  still  fear  my  own  weakness.  Let  me 
get  confidence  and  then  you  shall  see  a  countenance  such  as  I 
ought  to  have  and  an  attitude  such  as  I  ought  to  have ;  then 
I  will  show  to  you  the  statue,  when  it  is  perfected,  when  it 
is  polished.  What  do  you  expect?  a  supercilious  counte- 
nance? Does  the  Zeus  at  Olympia*  lift  up  his  brow?  No, 
his  look  is  fixed  as  becomes  him  who  is  ready  to  say 

"Irrevocable  is  my  word  and  shall  not  fail." — Iliad,  i.  526. 

Such  will  I  show  myself  to  you,  faithful,  modest,  noble,  free 
from  perturbation — What,  and  immortal  too,  exempt  from 
old  age,  and  from  sickness?  No,  but  dying  as  becomes  a 
god,  sickening  as  becomes  a  god.  This  power  I  possess ;  this 
I  can  do.     But  the  rest  I  do  not  possess,  nor  can  I  do.     I 


DISCOURSES  1 1 7 

will  show  the  nerves  (strength)  of  a  philosopher.  What 
nerves®  are  these?  A  desire  never  disappointed,  an  aver- 
sion which  never  falls  on  that  which  it  would  avoid,  a  proper 
pursuit  ( opu-qv  ) ,  a  diligent  purpose,  an  assent  which  is  not 
rash.     These  you  shall  see. 

NOTES 

*Schwei§hauser  observes  that  the  title  of  this  chapter  would  more  cor- 
rectly be  o  ©£05  kv  vfiiv,  God  in  man.  There  is  no  better  chapter  in 
the  book. 

*  Socrates  (Xenophon,  Mem.  iv.  6,  8)  concludes  "  that  the  useful  is 
good  to  him  to  whom  it  is  useful." 

*  I  do  not  remember  that  Epictetus  has  attempted  any  other  descrip- 
tion of  the  nature  of  God.  He  has  done  more  wisely  than  some  who 
have  attempted  to  answer  a  question  which  can  not  be  answered.  But 
see  ii.  14,  n-13. 

*  Compare  Cicero,  de  Offic.  i.  27. 

*  Noble  descent.     See  i.  9. 

The  doctrine  that  God  is  in  man  is  an  old  doctrine.  Euripides  said 
(Apud  Theon.  Soph.  Progym.)  :  — 

*0  vovi  yap  rffiXv  itrrtv  kv  iKdaToo  Geoi. 

The  doctrine  became  a  commonplace  of  the  poets  (Ovid,  Fast,  vi.), 
"  Est  deus  in  nobis,  agitante  calescimus  illo ;"  and  Horace,  Sat.  ii.  6,  79, 
"Atque  affigit  humo  divinae  particulam  aurae."     See  i.  14,  note  4. 

*  Mrs.  Carter  has  a  note  here.  "See  i  Cor.  vi:  19;  2  Cor.  vi:  16;  2 
Tim.  1 :  14 ;  i  John  iii :  24,  iv :  12,  13.  But  though  the  simple  expression 
of  carrying  God  about  with  us  may  seem  to  have  some  nearly  parallel 
to  it  in  the  New  Testament,  yet  those  represent  the  Almighty  in  a  more 
venerable  manner,  as  taking  the  hearts  of  good  men  for  a  temple  to 
dwell  in.  But  the  other  expressions  here  of  feeding  and  exercising  God, 
and  the  whole  of  the  paragraph,  and  indeed  of  the  Stoic  system,  show 
the  real  sense  of  even  its  more  decent  phrases  to  be  vastly  different  from 
that  of  Scripture." 

The  passage  in  i  Cor.  vi:  19,  is  ("What?  know  ye  not  that  your 
body  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost  which  is  in  you,  which  ye  have  of 
God,  and  ye  are  not  your  own"  ?  This  follows  v.  18,  which  is  an  ex- 
hortation to  "flee  fornication."  The  passage  in  2  Cor.  vi:  16  is,  "And 
what  agreement  hath  the  temple  of  God  with  idols?  for  ye  are  the 
temple  of  the  living  God ;  as  God  hath  said,  I  will  dwell  in  them  and 
walk  in  them,"  etc.  Mrs.  Carter  has  not  correctly  stated  the  sense  of 
these  two  passages. 

It  is  certain  that  Epictetus  knew  nothing  of  the  writers  of  the  Epistles 
in  the  New  Testament :  but  whence  did  these  writers  learn  such  forms 
of  expression  as  we  find  in  the  passages  cited  by  Mrs.  Carter?  I  believe 
that  they  drew  them  from  the  Stoic  philosophers  who  wrote  before  Epic- 
tetus and  that  they  applied  them  to  the  new  religion  which  they  were 
teaching.  The  teaching  of  Paul  and  of  Epictetus  does  not  differ:  the 
spirit  of  God  is  in  man. 

Swedenborg  says,  "In  these  two  faculties  (rationality  and  liberty)  the 
Lord  resides  with  every  man,  whether  he  be  good  or  evil,  they  being 


Il8  EPICTETUS 

the  Lord's  mansions  in  the  human  race.  But  the  mansion  of  the  Lord  is 
nearer  with  a  man,  in  proportion  as  the  man  opens  the  superior  degrees 
by  these  faculties ;  for  by  the  opening  thereof  he  comes  into  superior  de- 
grees of  love  and  wisdom,  and  consequently  nearer  to  the  Lord.  Hence  it 
may  appear  that  as  these  degrees  are  opened,  so  a  man  is  in  the  Lord  and 
the  Lord  in  him."  Swedenborg,  Angelic  Wisdom,  240.  Again,  "the  fac- 
ulty of  thinking  rationally,  viewed  in  itself,  is  not  man's,  but  Go.d's  in 
man." 

I  am  not  quite  sure  in  what  sense  the  administration  of  the  Eucharist 
ought  to  be  understood  in  the  church  of  England  service.  Some  English 
divines  formerly  understood,  and  perhaps  some  now  understand,  the 
ceremony  as  a  commemoration  of  the  blood  of  Christ  shed  for  us  and  of 
his  body  which  was  broken ;  as  we  see  in  T.  Burnet's  posthumous  work 
(de  Fide  et  Officiis  Christianorum,  p.  80).  It  was  a  commemoration  of 
the  last  supper  of  Jesus  and  the  Apostles.  But  this  does  not  appear  to  be 
the  sense  in  which  the  ceremony  is  now  understood  by  some  priests  and 
by  some  members  of  the  church  of  England,  whose  notions  approach 
near  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Catholic  mass.  Nor  does  it  appear  to  be  the 
sense  of  the  prayer  made  before  delivering  the  bread  and  wine  to  the 
Communicants,  for  the  prayer  is  "Grant  us,  gracious  Lord,  so  to  eat  the 
flesh  of  thy  dear  son  Jesus  Christ  and  to  drink  his  blood  that  our  sinful 
bodies  may  be  made  clean  by  his  body  and  our  souls  washed  through 
his  most  precious  blood  and  that  we  may  evermore  dwell  in  him  and  he 
in  us."  This  is  a  different  thing  from  Epictetus'  notion  of  God  being  in 
man,  and  also  different,  as  I  understand  it,  from  the  notion  contained  in 
the  two  passages  of  Paul;  for  it  is  there  said  generally  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  in  man  or  God  in  man,  not  that  God  is  in  man  by  virtue  of  a 
particular  ceremony.  It  should  not  be  omitted  that  there  is  after  the  end 
of  the  Communion  service  an  admonition  that  the  sacramental  bread  and 
wine  remain  what  they  were,  "and  that  the  natural  body  and  blood  of 
our  Saviour  Christ  are  in  heaven  and  not  here;  it  being  against  the 
truth  of  Christ's  natural  body  to  be  at  one  time  in  more  places  than  one." 
It  was  affirmed  by  the  Reformers  and  the  best  writers  of  the  English 
church  that  the  presence  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist  is  a  spiritual  pres- 
ence, and  in  this  opinion  they  followed  Calvin  and  the  Swiss  divines : 
and  yet  in  the  Prayer  book  we  have  the  language  that  I  have  quoted; 
and  even  Calvin,  who  only  maintained  a  spiritual  presence,  said,  "that 
the  verity  is  nevertheless  joined  to  the  signs,  and  that  in  the  sacrament 
we  have  'true  Communion  in  Christ's  body  and  blood.'"  (Contem- 
porary Review,  p.  464,  August  1874).  What  would  Epictetus  have 
thought  of  the  subtleties  of  our  days? 

^  The  Athena  of  Phidias  was  in  the  Parthenon  on  the  Athenian 
Acropolis,  a  colossal  chryselephantine  statue,  that  is,  a  frame  work  of 
wood,  covered  with  ivory  and  gold.  The  figure  of  Victory  stood  on  the 
hand  of  the  goddess,  as  we  frequently  see  in  coins. 

'  The  great  statue  at  Olympia  was  the  work  of  Phidias.  It  was  a 
seated  colossal  chryselephantine  statue,  and  held  a  Victory  in  the  right 
hand. 

'  An  allusion  to  the  combatants  in  the  public  exercises,  who  used  to 
show  their  shoulders,  muscles  and  sinews  as  a  proof  of  their  strength. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THAT  WHEN  WE  CAN  NOT  FULFIL  THAT  WHICH  THE  CHAR- 
ACTER OF  A  MAN  PROMISES,  WE  ASSUME  THE  CHARACTER 
OF  A  PHILOSOPHER 

IT  is  no  common  (easy)  thing  to  do  this  only,  to  fulfil  the 
promise  of  a  man's  nature.  For  what  is  a  man  ?  The 
answer  is,  a  rational  and  mortal  being.  Then  by  the 
rational  faculty  from  whom  are  we  separated?  From 
wild  beasts.  And  from  what  others?  From  sheep  and 
like  animals.  Take  care  then  to  do  nothing  like  a  wild 
beast ;  but  if  you  do,  you  have  lost  the  character  of  a  man ; 
you  have  not  fulfilled  your  promise.  See  that  you  do  noth- 
ing like  a  sheep ;  but  if  you  do,  in  this  case  also  the  man  is 
lost.  What  then  do  we  do  as  sheep  ?  When  we  act  glutton- 
ously, when  we  act  lewdly,  when  we  act  rashly,  filthily,  in- 
considerately, to  what  have  we  declined  ?  To  sheep.  What 
have  we  lost  ?  The  rational  faculty.  When  we  act  conten- 
tiously  and  harmfully  and  passionately,  and  violently,  to 
what  have  we  declined?  To  wild  beasts.  Consequently 
some  of  us  are  great  wild  beasts,  and  others  little  beasts,  of 
a  bad  disposition  and  small,  whence  we  may  say,  Let  me  be 
eaten  by  a  lion.*  But  in  all  these  ways  the  promise  of  a  man 
acting  as  a  man  is  destroyed.  For  when  is  a  conjunctive 
(complex)  proposition  maintained?^  When  it  fulfils  what 
its  nature  promises;  so  that  the  preservation  of  a  complex 
proposition  is  when  it  is  a  conjunction  of  truths.  When  is 
a  disjunctive  maintained?  When  it  fulfils  what  it  prom- 
ises. When  are  flutes,  a  lyre,  a  horse,  a  dog,  preserved? 
(when  they  severally  keep  their  promise).  What  is  the 
wonder  then  if  man  also  in  like  manner  is  preserved,  and  in 
like  manner  is  lost?  Each  man  is  improved  and  preserved 
by  corresponding  acts,  the  carpenter  by  acts  of  carpentry, 
the  grammarian  by  acts  of  grammar.  But  if  a  man  accus- 
toms himself  to  write  ungrammatically,  of  necessity  his  art 
will  be  corrupted  and  destroyed.  Thus  modest  actions  pre- 
serve the  modest  man,  and  immodest  actions  destroy  him: 

119 


1 20  EPICTETUS 

and  actions  of  fidelity  preserve  the  faithful  man,  and  the 
contrary  actions  destroy  him.  And  on  the  other  hand  con- 
trary actions  strengthen  contrary  characters :  shamelessness 
strengthens  the  shameless  man,  faithlessness  the  faithless 
man,  abusive  words  the  abusive  man,  anger  the  man  of  an 
angry  temper,  and  unequal  receiving  and  giving  make  the 
avaricious  man  more  avaricious. 

For  this  reason  philosophers  admonish  us  not  to  be  sat- 
isfied with  learning  only,  but  also  to  add  study,  and  then 
practice.'     For  we  have  long  been  accustomed  to  do  con- 
trary things,  and  we  put  in  practice  opinions  which  are  con- 
trary to  true  opinions.     If  then  we  shall  not  also  put  in  prac- 
tice right  opinions,  we  shall  be  nothing  more  than  the  ex- 
positors of  the  opinions  of  others.     For  now  who  among 
us  is  not  able  to  discourse  according  to  the  rules  of  art  about 
good  and  evil  things   (in  this  fashion)  ?     That  of  things 
some  are  good,  and  some  are  bad,  and  some  are  indifferent : 
the  good  then  are  virtues,  and  the  things  which  participate 
in  virtues ;  and  the  bad  are  the  contrary ;  and  the  indifferent 
are  wealth,  health,  reputation. — Then,  if  in  the  midst  of  our 
talk  there  should  happen  some  greater  noise  than  usual,  or 
some  of  those  who  are  present  should  laugh  at  us,  we  are 
disturbed.     Philosopher,  where  are  the  things  which  you 
were  talking  about?      Whence  did  you  produce  and  utter 
them.     From  the  lips,  and  thence  only.     Why  then  do  you 
corrupt  the  aids  provided  by  others?     Why  do  you  treat 
the  weightiest  matters  as  if  you  were  playing  a  game  of  dice  ? 
For  it  is  one  thing  to  lay  up  bread  and  wine  as  in  a  store- 
house, and  another  thing  to  eat.     That  which  has  been  eaten, 
is  digested,  distributed,  and  is  become  sinews,  flesh,  bones, 
blood,  healthy  colour,  healthy  breath.     Whatever  is  stored 
up,  when  you  choose  you  can  readily  take  and  show  it ;  but 
you  have  no  other  advantage  from  it  except  so  far  as  to  ap- 
pear to  possess  it.     For  what  is  the  difference  between  ex- 
plaining these  doctrines  and  those  of  men  who  have  different 
opinions  ?     Sit  down  now  and  explain  according  to  the  rules 
of  art  the  opinions  of  Epicurus,  and  perhaps  you  will  explain 
his  opinions  in  a  more  useful  manner  than  Epicurus  him- 
self.*    Why  then  do  you  call  yourself  a  Stoic?     Why  do 
you  deceive  the  many  ?     Why  do  you  act  the  part  of  a  Jew,*^ 


DISCOURSES  121 

when  you  are  a  Greek?  Do  you  not  see  how  (why)  each  is 
called  a  Jew,  or  a  Syrian  or  an  Egyptian  ?  and  when  we  see 
a  man  inclining  to  two  sides,  we  are  accustomed  to  say,  This 
man  is  not  a  Jew,  but  he  acts  as  one.  But  when  he  has  as- 
sumed the  affects  of  one  who  has  been  imbued  with  Jewish 
doctrine  and  has  adopted  that  sect,  then  he  is  in  fact  and  he 
is  named  a  Jew.°  Thus  we  too  being  falsely  imbued  (bap- 
tized), are  in  name  Jews,  but  in  fact  we  are  something  else. 
Our  affects  (feelings)  are  inconsistent  with  our  words;  we 
are  far  from  practising  what  we  say,  and  that  of  which  we 
are  proud,  as  if  we  knew  it.  Thus  being  unable  to  fulfil 
even  what  the  character  of  a  man  promises,  we  even  add  to 
it  the  profession  of  a  philosopher,  which  is  as  heavy  a  bur- 
den, as  if  a  man  who  is  unable  to  bear  ten  pounds  should  at- 
tempt to  raise  the  stone  which  Ajax'^  lifted. 

NOTES 

*  This  seems  to  be  a  proverb.  If  I  am  eaten,  let  me  be  eaten  by  the 
nobler  animal. 

*A  conjunctive  or  complex  (arvjuTtsTtXeyjuevov)  axiom  or  lemma. 
Gellius  (xvi.  8)  gives  an  example:  "  P.  Scipio,  the  son  of  Paulus,  was 
both  twice  consul  and  triumphed,  and  exercised  the  censorship  and  was 
the  colleague  of  L.  Mummius  in  his  censorship."  Gellius  adds,  "in  every 
conjunctive  if  there  is  one  falsehood,  though  the  other  parts  are  true, 
the  whole  is  said  to  be  false,"  For  the  whole  is  proposed  as  true:  there- 
fore if  one  part  is  false,  the  whole  is  not  true.  The  disjunctive 
(Sts^evyjxEvov )  is  of  this  kind :  "pleasure  is  either  bad  or  good,  or 
neither  good  nor  bad." 

'We  often  say  a  man  learns  a  particular  thing;  and  there  are  men 
who  profess  to  teach  certain  things,  such  as  a  language,  or  an  art;  and 
they  mean  by  teaching  that  the  taught  shall  learn ;  and  learning  means 
that  they  shall  be  able  to  do  what  they  learn.  He  who  teaches  an  art 
professes  that  the  scholar  shall  be  able  to  practice  the  art,  the  art  of 
making  shoes  for  example,  or  other  useful  things.  There  are  men  who 
profess  to  teach  religion,  and  morality,  and  virtue  generally.  These  men 
may  tell  us  what  they  conceive  to  be  religion,  and  morality,  and  virtue ; 
and  those  who  are  said  to  be  taught  may  know  what  their  teachers  have 
told  them.  But  the  learning  of  religion,  and  of  morality  and  of  virtue, 
mean  that  the  learner  will  do  the  acts  of  religion  and  of  morality  and  of 
virtue ;  which  is  a  very  different  thing  from  knowing  what  the  acts  of 
religion,  of  morality,  and  of  virtue  are.  The  teacher's  teaching  is  in  fact 
only  made  efficient  by  his  example,  by  his  doing  that  which  he  teaches. 

*  "He  is  not  a  Stoic  philosopher,  who  can  only  explain  in  a  subtle  and 
proper  manner  the  Stoic  principles :  for  the  same  person  can  explain  the 
principles  of  Epicurus,  of  course  for  the  purpose  of  refuting  them,  and 
perhaps  he  can  explain  them  better  than  Epicurus  himself.  Consequently 
he  might  be  at  the  same  time  a  Stoic  and  an  Epicurean ;  which  is  ab- 
surd."— Schweig.    He  means  that  the  mere  knowledge  of  Stoic  opinions 


122  EPICTETUS 

does  not  make  a  man  a  Stoic,  or  any  other  philosopher.  A  man  must 
according  to  Stoic  principles  practice  them  in  order  to  be  a  Stoic  philoso- 
pher. So  if  we  say  that  a  man  is  a  religious  man,  he  must  do  the  acts 
which  his  religion  teaches;  for  it  is  by  his  acts  only  that  we  can  know 
him  to  be  a  religious  man.  What  he  says  and  professes  may  be  false : 
and  no  man  knows  except  himself  whether  his  words  and  professions 
are  true.  The  uniformity,  regularity,  and  consistency  of  his  acts  are  evi- 
dence which  can  not  be  mistaken. 

*  It  has  been  suggested  that  Epictetus  confounded  under  the  name  of 
Jews  those  who  were  Jews  and  those  who  were  Christians.  We  know 
that  some  Jews  became  Christians. 

*  It  is  possible,  as  I  have  said,  that  by  Jews  Epictetus  means  Christians, 
for  Christians  and  Jews  are  evidently  confounded  by  some  writers,  as 
the  first  Christians  were  of  the  Jewish  nation.  In  book  iv.  7,  Epictetus 
gives  the  name  of  Galilaeans  to  the  Jews.  The  term  Galilaeans  points  to 
the  country  of  the  great  teacher.  Paul  says  (Romans,  ii:  28),  "For  he 
is  not  a  Jew,  which  is  one  outwardly — but  he  is  a  Jew  which  is  one  in- 
wardly," etc.  His  remarks  (ii:  17-29)  on  the  man  "who  is  called  a  Jew, 
and  rests  in  the  law  and  makes  his  boast  of  God"  may  be  compared  with 
what  Epictetus  says  of  a  man  who  is  called  a  philosopher,  and  does  not 
practice  that  which  he  professes. 

'  See  ii.  24,  26 ;   Iliad,  vii.  264,  etc. ;  Juvenal,  xv.  65. 

"Nee  hunc  lapidem,  quales  et  Turnus  et  Ajax 
Vel  quo  Tydides  percussit  pondere  coxam 
JEnese." — ^Upton. 


CHAPTER  X 

HOW  WE  MAY  DISCOVER  THE  DUTIES  OF  LIFE  FROM   NAMES 

CONSIDER  who  you  are.  In  the  first  place,  you  are 
a  man;  and  this  is  one  who  has  nothing  superior 
to  the  faculty  of  the  will,  but  all  other  things  sub- 
jected to  it;  and  the  faculty  itself  he  possesses  un- 
enslaved  and  free  from  subjection.  Consider  then  from 
what  things  you  have  been  separated  by  reason.  You  have 
been  separated  from  wild  beasts:  you  have  been  separated 
from  domestic  animals  ( itpo^droov  ) .  Further,  you  are  a  citi- 
zen of  the  world,  and  a  part  of  it,  not  one  of  the  subservient 
(serving),  but  one  of  the  principal  (ruling)  parts,  for  you  are 
capable  of  comprehending  the  divine  administration  and  of 
considering  the  connexion  of  things.  What  then  does  the 
character  of  a  citizen  promise  (profess)  ?  To  hold  nothing 
as  profitable  to  himself;  to  deliberate  about  nothing  as  if  he 
were  detached  from  the  community,  but  to  act  as  the  hand 
or  foot  would  do,  if  they  had  reason  and  understood  the  con- 
stitution of  nature,  for  they  would  never  put  themselves  in 
motion  nor  desire  any  thing  otherwise  than  with  reference 
to  the  whole.  Therefore  the  philosophers  say  well,  that  if 
the  good  man  had  foreknowledge  of  what  would  happen,  he 
would  co-operate  towards  his  own  sickness  and  death  and 
mutilation,  since  he  knows^  that  these  things  are  assigned 
to  him  according  to  the  universal  arrangement,  and  that  the 
whole  is  superior  to  the  part,  and  the  state  to  the  citizen. 
But  now  because  we  do  not  know  the  future,  it  is  our  duty 
to  stick  to  the  things  which  are  in  their  nature  more  suitable 
for  our  choice,  for  we  were  made  among  other  things  for 
this. 

After  this  remember  that  you  are  a  son.  What  does  this 
character  promise?  To  consider  that  every  thing  which  is 
the  son's  belongs  to  the  father,  to  obey  him  in  all  things, 
never  to  blame  him  to  another,  nor  to  say  or  do  any  thing 
which  does  him  injury,  to  yield  to  him  in  all  things  and 
gfive  way,  co-operating  with  him  as  far  as  you  can.     After 

123 


124  EPICTETUS 

this  know  that  you  are  a  brother  also,  and  that  to  this  charac- 
ter it  is  due  to  make  concessions ;  to  be  easily  persuaded,  to 
speak  good  of  your  brother,  never  to  claim  in  opposition  to 
him  any  of  the  things  which  are  independent  of  the  will,  but 
readily  to  give  them  up,  that  you  may  have  the  larger  share 
in  what  is  dependent  on  the  will.  For  see  what  a  thing  it 
is,  in  place  of  a  lettuce,  if  it  should  so  happen,  or  a  seat,  to 
gain  for  yourself  goodness  of  disposition.  How  great  is 
the  advantage.^ 

Next  to  this,  if  you  are  a  senator  of  any  state,  remember 
that  you  are  a  senator :  if  a  youth,  that  you  are  a  youth :  if 
an  old  man,  that  you  are  an  old  man ;  for  each  of  such  names, 
if  it  comes  to  be  examined,  marks  out  the  proper  duties. 
But  if  you  go  and  blame  your  brother,  I  say  to  you,  You 
have  forgotten  who  you  are  and  what  is  your  name.  In  the 
next  place,  if  you  were  a  smith  and  made  a  wrong  use  of  the 
hammer,  you  would  have  forgotten  the  smith;  and  if  you 
have  forgotten  the  brother  and  instead  of  a  brother  have  be- 
come an  enemy,  would  you  appear  not  to  have  changed  one 
thing  for  another  in  that  case?  And  if  instead  of  a  man, 
who  is  a  tame  animal  and  social,  you  are  become  a  mischie- 
vous wild  beast,  treacherous,  and  biting,  have  you  lost  noth- 
ing? But,  (I  suppose)  you  must  lose  a  bit  of  money  that 
you  may  suffer  damage  ?  And  does  the  loss  of  nothing  else 
do  a  man  damage?  If  you  had  lost  the  art  of  grammar  or 
music,  would  you  think  the  loss  of  it  a  damage?  and  if  you 
shall  lose  modesty,  moderation  (  KaTadroX^v)  and  gentleness, 
do  you  think  the  loss  nothing?  And  yet  the  things  first 
mentioned  are  lost  by  some  cause  external  and  independent 
of  the  will,  and  the  second  by  our  own  fault ;  and  as  to  the 
first  neither  to  have  them  nor  to  lose  them  is  shameful ;  but 
as  to  the  second,  not  to  have  them  and  to  lose  them  is  shame- 
ful and  matter  of  reproach  and  a  misfortune.  What  does 
the  pathic  lose?  He  loses  the  (character  of)  man.  What 
does  he  lose  who  makes  the  pathic  what  he  is  ?  Many  other 
things;  and  he  also  loses  the  man  no  less  than  the  other. 
What  does  he  lose  who  commits  adultery?  He  loses  the 
(character  of  the)  modest,  the  temperate,  the  decent,  the 
citizen,  the  neighbour.  What  does  he  lose  who  is  angry? 
Something  else.     What  does  the  coward  lose?     Something 


DISCOURSES 


125 


else.  No  man  is  bad  without  suffering  some  loss  and  damage. 
If  then  you  look  for  the  damage  in  the  loss  of  money  only, 
all  these  men  receive  no  harm  or  damage;  it  may  be,  they 
have  even  profit  and  gain,  when  they  acquire  a  bit  of  money 
by  any  of  these  deeds.  But  consider  that  if  you  refer  every 
thing  to  a  small  coin,  not  even  he  who  loses  his  nose  is  in 
your  opinion  damaged.  Yes,  you  say,  for  he  is  mutilated 
in  his  body.  Well ;  but  does  he  who  has  lost  his  smell  only 
lose  nothing?  Is  there  then  no  energy  of  the  soul  which  is 
an  advantage  to  him  who  possesses  it,  and  a  damage  to  him 
who  has  lost  it? — Tell  me  what  sort  (of  energy)  you  mean. 
— Have  we  not  a  natural  modesty? — We  have. — Does  he 
who  loses  this  sustain  no  damage?  is  he  deprived  of  nothing, 
does  he  part  with  nothing  of  the  things  which  belong  to  him  ? 
Have  we  not  naturally  fidelity?  natural  affection,  a  natural 
disposition  to  help  others,  a  natural  disposition  to  forbear- 
ance? The  man  then  who  allows  himself  to  be  damaged  in 
these  matters,  can  he  be  free  from  harm  and  uninjured. 
What  then  ?  shall  I  not  hurt  him,  who  has  hurt  me  ?^  In  the 
first  place  consider  what  hurt  {fiXaftri)  is,  and  remember  what 
you  have  heard  from  the  philosophers.  For  if  the  good 
consists  in  the  will  (purpose,  intention,  Ttpoaisaei) ,  and  the 
evil  also  in  the  will,  see  if  what  you  say  is  not  this :  What 
then,  since  that  man  has  hurt  himself  by  doing  an  unjust 
act  to  me,  shall  I  not  hurt  myself  by  doing  some  unjust  act 
to  him?  Why  do  we  not  imagine  to  ourselves  (mentally 
think  of)  something  of  this  kind?  But  where  there  is 
any  detriment  to  the  body  or  to  our  possession,  there  is  harm 
there;  and  where  the  same  thing  happens  to  the  faculty  of 
the  will,  there  is  (you  suppose)  no  harm;  for  he  who  has 
been  deceived  or  he  who  has  done  an  unjust  act  neither 
suffers  in  the  head  nor  in  the  eye  nor  in  the  hip,  nor  does  he 
lose  his  estate;  and  we  wish  for  nothing  else  than  (security 
to)  these  things.  But  whether  we  shall  have  the  will  modest 
and  faithful  or  shameless  and  faithless,  we  care  not  the 
least,  except  only  in  the  school  so  far  as  a  few  words  are 
concerned.  Therefore  our  proficiency  is  limited  to  these 
few  words,  but  beyond  them  it  does  not  exist  even  in  the 
slightest  degree.* 


1 26  EPICTETUS 

NOTES 

*  This  may  appear  extravagant ;  but  it  is  possible  to  explain  it,  and 
even  to  assent  to  it.  If  a  man  believes  that  all  is  wisely  arranged  in  the 
course  of  human  events,  he  would  not  even  try  to  resist  that  which  he 
knows  it  is  appointed  for  him  to  suffer :  he  would  submit  and  be  would 
endure.  If  Epictetus  means  that  the  man  would  actively  promote  the  end 
or  purpose  which  he  foreknew,  in  order  that  his  acts  may  be  consistent 
with  what  he  foreknows  and  with  his  duty,  perhaps  the  philosopher's 
saying  is  too  hard  to  deal  with ;  and  as  it  rests  on  an  impossible  as- 
sumption of  foreknowledge,  we  may  be  here  wiser  than  the  philosophers, 
if  we  say  no  more  about  it. 

*  A  lettuce  is  an  example  of  the  most  trifling  thing.  A  seat  probably 
means  a  seat  of  superiority,  a  magistrate's  seat,  a  Roman  sella  curulis. 

^Socrates — We  must  by  no  means  then  do  an  act  of  injustice.  Crito. — 
Certainly  not.  Socrates. — Nor  yet  when  you  are  wronged  must  you  do 
wrong  in  return,  as  most  people  think,  since  you  must  in  no  way  do  an 
unjust  act.     Plato,  Crito,  c.  10. 

*The  same  remark  will  apply  to  most  dissertations  spoken  or  written 
on  moral  subjects :  they  are  exercises  of  skill  for  him  who  delivers  or 
writes  them,  or  matter  for  criticism  and  perhaps  a  way  of  spending  an 
idle  hour  for  him  who  listens ;  and  that  is  all.  Epictetus  blames  our  in- 
dolence and  indifference  as  to  acts,  and  the  trifling  of  the  schools  of 
philosophy  in  disputation. 


CHAPTER  XI 

WHAT  THE  BEGINNING  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IS 

THE  beginning  of  philosophy  to  him  at  least  who  enters 
on  it  in  the  right  way  and  by  the  door,  is  a  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  weakness  and  inability  about 
necessary  things.  For  we  come  into  the  world  with 
no  natural  notion  of  a  right  angled  triangle,  or  of  a  diesis  (a 
quarter  tone),  or  of  a  half  tone;  but  we  learn  each  of  these 
things  by  a  certain  transmission  according  to  art;  and  for 
this  reason  those  who  do  not  know  them,  do  not  think  that 
they  know  them.  But  as  to  good  and  evil,  and  beautiful  and 
ugly,  and  becoming  and  unbecoming,  and  happiness  and  mis- 
fortune, and  proper  and  improper,  and  what  we  ought  to  do 
and  what  we  ought  not  to  do,  who  ever  came  into  the  world 
without  having  an  innate  idea  of  them  ?  Wherefore  we  all 
use  these  names,  and  we  endeavour  to  fit  the  preconceptions 
to  the  several  cases  (things)  thus:  he  has  done  well,  he  has 
not  done  well ;  he  has  done  as  he  ought,  not  as  he  ought ;  he 
has  been  unfortunate,  he  has  been  fortunate;  he  is  unjust,  he 
is  just :  who  does  not  use  these  names?  who  among  us  defers 
the  use  of  them  till  he  has  learned  them,  as  he  defers  the  use 
of  the  words  about  lines  (geometrical  figures)  or  sounds? 
And  the  cause  of  this  is  that  we  come  into  the  world 
already  taught  as  it  were  by  nature  some  things  on  this 
matter  (rojtov  ) ,  and  proceeding  from  these  we  have  added  to 
them  self-conceit  (  oiTfmv  ) .  For  why,  a  man  says,  do  I  not 
know  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly  ?  Have  I  not  the  notion  of  it  ? 
You  have.  Do  I  not  adapt  it  to  particulars  ?  You  do.  Do 
I  not  then  adapt  it  properly?  In  that  lies  the  whole  ques- 
tion ;  and  conceit  is  added  here.  For  beginning  from  these 
things  which  are  admitted  men  proceed  to  that  which  is  mat- 
ter of  dispute  by  means  of  unsuitable  adaptation ;  for  if  they 
possessed  this  power  of  adaptation  in  addition  to  those 
things,  what  would  hinder  them  from  being  perfect?  But 
now  since  you  think  that  you  properly  adapt  the  preconcep- 
tions to  the  particulars,  tell  me  whence  you  derive  this  (as- 

127 


128  EPICTETUS 

sume  that  you  do  so).  Because  I  think  so.  But  it  does  not 
seem  so  to  another,  and  he  thinks  that  he  also  makes  a  proper 
adaptation ;  or  does  he  not  think  so  ?  He  does  think  so.  Is 
it  possible  then  that  both  of  you  can  properly  apply  the  pre- 
conceptions to  things  about  which  you  have  contrary  opin- 
ions? It  is  not  possible.  Can  you  then  show  us  anything 
better  towards  adapting  the  preconceptions  beyond  your 
thinking  that  you  do?  Does  the  madman  do  any  other 
things  than  the  things  which  seem  to  him  right?  Is  then 
this  criterion  sufficient  for  him  also?  It  is  not  sufficient. 
Come  then  to  something  which  is  superior  to  seeming 
(rov  doKsiv) .     What  is  this  ? 

Observe,  this  is  the  beginning  of  philosophy,  a  percep- 
tion of  the  disagreement  of  men  with  one  another,  and 
an  inquiry  into  the  cause  of  the  disagreement,  and  a  con- 
demnation and  distrust  of  that  which  only  seems,  and  a 
certain  investigation  of  that  which  seems  whether  it  seems 
rightly,  and  a  discovery  of  some  rule  (Kavovog-) ,  as  we  have 
discovered  a  balance  in  the  determination  of  weights,  and  a 
carpenter's  rule  (or  square)  in  the  case  of  straight  and 
crooked  things. — This  is  the  beginning  of  philosophy.  Must 
we  say  that  all  things  are  right  which  seem  so  to  all  ?  And 
how  is  it  possible  that  contradictions  can  be  right  ? — Not  all 
then,  but  all  which  seem  to  us  to  be  right. — How  more  to 
you  than  those  which  seem  right  to  the  Syrians?  why  more 
than  what  seem  right  to  the  Egyptians  ?  why  more  than  what 
seems  right  to  me  or  to  any  other  man?  Not  at  all  more. 
What  then  seems  to  every  man  is  not  sufficient  for  deter- 
mining what  is ;  for  neither  in  the  case  of  weights  or  mea- 
sures are  we  satisfied  with  the  bare  appearance,  but  in  each 
case  we  have  discovered  a  certain  rule.  In  this  matter  then 
is  there  no  rule  superior  to  what  seems?  And  how  is  it 
possible  that  the  most  necessary  things  among  men  should 
have  no  sign  (mark),  and  be  incapable  of  being  discovered? 
There  is  then  some  rule.  And  why  then  do  we  not  seek  the 
rule  and  discover  it,  and  afterwards  use  it  without  varying 
from  it,  not  even  stretching  out  the  finger  without  it  ?^  For 
this,  I  think,  is  that  which  when  it  is  discovered  cures  of  their 
madness  those  who  use  mere  seeming  as  a  measure,  and 
misuse  it;  so  that  for  the  future  proceeding  from  certain 


DISCOURSES  129 

things  (principles)  known  and  made  clear  we  may  use  in 
the  case  of  particular  things  the  preconceptions  which  are 
distinctly  fixed. 

What  is  the  matter  presented  to  us  about  which  we  are 
inquiring?  Pleasure  (for  example) .  Subject  it  to  the  rule, 
throw  it  into  the  balance.  Ought  the  good  to  be  such  a 
thing  that  it  is  fit  that  we  have  confidence  in  it  ?  Yes.  And 
in  which  we  ought  to  confide?  It  ought  to  be.  Is  it  fit  to 
trust  to  any  thing  which  is  insecure?  No.  Is  then  pleasure 
any  thing  secure?  No.  Take  it  then  and  throw  it  out  of 
the  scale,  and  drive  it  far  away  from  the  place  of  good  things. 
But  if  you  are  not  sharp-sighted,  and  one  balance  is  not 
enough  for  you,  bring  another.  Is  it  fit  to  be  elated  over 
what  is  good?  Yes.  Is  it  proper  then  to  be  elated  over 
present  pleasure  ?  See  that  you  do  not  say  that  it  is  proper ; 
but  if  you  do,  I  shall  then  not  think  you  worthy  even  of  the 
balance.^  Thus  things  are  tested  and  weighed  when  the 
rules  are  ready.  And  to  philosophize  is  this,  to  examine  and 
confirm  the  rules ;  and  then  to  use  them  when  they  are  known 
is  the  act  of  a  wise  and  good  man.^ 

NOTES 

*  Doing  nothing  without  the  rule.   This  is  a  Greek  proverb. 

*  That  is,  so  far  shall  I  consider  you  from  being  able  to  judge  rightly 
of  things  without  a  balance  that  I  shall  understand  that  not  even  with 
the  aid  of  a  balance  can  you  do  it,  that  you  can  not  even  use  a  balance, 
and  consequently  that  you  are  not  worth  a  single  word  from  me. 
— Schweig. 

*  This  is  a  just  conclusion.  We  must  fix  the  canons  or  rules  by  which 
things  are  tried ;  and  then  the  rules  may  be  applied  by  the  wise  and  good 
to  all  cases. 


CHAPTER  XII 

OF  DISPUTATION  OR  DISCUSSION 

WHAT  things  a  man  must  learn  in  order  to  be  able  to 
apply  the  art  of  disputation,  has  been  accurately 
shown  by  our  philosophers  (the  Stoics)  ;  but 
with  respect  to  the  proper  use  of  the  things,  we 
are  entirely  without  practice.  Only  give  to  any  of  us,  whom 
you  please,  an  illiterate  man  to  discuss  with,  and  he  can  not 
discover  how  to  deal  with  the  man.  But  when  he  has  moved 
the  man  a  little,  if  he  answers  beside  the  purpose,  he  does  not 
know  how  to  treat  him,  but  he  then  either  abuses  or  ridicules 
him,  and  says,  "He  is  an  illiterate  man ;  it  is  not  possible  to 
do  any  thing  with  him."  Now  a  guide,  when  he  has  found  a 
man  out  of  the  road  leads  him  into  the  right  way :  he  does  not 
ridicule  or  abuse  him  and  then  leave  him.  Do  you  also  show 
the  illiterate  man  the  truth,  and  you  will  see  that  he  follows. 
But  so  long  as  you  do  not  show  him  the  truth,  do  not  ridicule 
him,  but  rather  feel  your  own  incapacity. 

How  then  did  Socrates  act?  He  used  to  compel  his 
adversary  in  disputation  to  bear  testimony  to  him,  and  he 
wanted  no  other  witness.^  Therefore  he  could  say,  "I  care 
not  for  other  witnesses,  but  I  am  always  satisfied  with  the 
evidence  (testimony)  of  my  adversary,  and  I  do  not  ask  the 
opinion  of  others,  but  only  the  opinion  of  him  who  is  disput- 
ing with  me."  For  he  used  to  make  the  conclusion  drawn 
from  natural  notions  so  plain  that  every  man  saw  the  contra- 
diction (if  it  existed)  and  withdrew  from  it  (thus)  :  Does 
the  envious^  man  rejoice?  By  no  means,  but  he  is  rather 
pained.  Well,  Do  you  think  that  envy  is  pain  over  evils? 
and  what  envy  is  there  of  evils?  Therefore  he  made  his  ad- 
versary say  that  envy  is  pain  over  good  things.  Well  then, 
would  any  man  envy  those  who  are  nothing  to  him  ?  By  no 
means.  Thus  having  completed  the  notion  and  distinctly 
fixed  it  he  would  go  away  without  saying  to  his  adversary, 
Define  to  me  envy ;  and  if  the  adversary  had  defined  envy,  he 
did  not  say,  You  have  defined  it  badly,  for  the  terms  of  the 

130 


DISCOURSES  131 

definition  do  not  correspond  to  the  thing  defined — These  are 
technical  terms,  and  for  this  reason  disagreeable  and  hardly 
intelligible  to  illiterate  men,  which  terms  we  (philosophers) 
can  not  lay  aside.  But  that  the  illiterate  man  himself,  who 
follows  the  appearances  presented  to  him,  should  be  able  to 
concede  any  thing  or  reject  it,  we  can  never  by  the  use  of 
these  terms  move  him  to  do.  Accordingly  being  conscious 
of  our  own  inability,  we  do  not  attempt  the  thing;  at  least 
such  of  us  as  have  any  caution  do  not.  But  the  greater  part 
and  the  rash,  when  they  enter  into  such  disputations,  confuse 
themselves  and  confuse  others ;  and  finally  abusing  their  ad- 
versaries and  abused  by  them,  they  walk  away. 

Now  this  was  the  first  and  chief  peculiarity  of  Socrates, 
never  to  be  irritated  in  argument,  never  to  utter  any  thing 
abusive,  any  thing  insulting,  but  to  bear  with  abusive  persons 
and  to  put  an  end  to  the  quarrel.  If  you  would  know  what 
great  power  he  had  in  this  way,  read  the  Symposium  of 
Xenophon,^  and  you  will  see  how  many  quarrels  he  put  an 
end  to.  Hence  with  good  reason  in  the  poets  also  this  power 
is  most  highly  praised, 

"Quickly  with  skill  he  settles  great  disputes."* 

Well  then ;  the  matter  is  not  now  very  safe,  and  particularly 
at  Rome ;  for  he  who  attempts  to  do  it,  must  not  do  it  in  a 
comer,  you  may  be  sure,  but  must  go  to  a  man  of  consular 
rank,  if  it  so  happen,  or  to  a  rich  man,  and  ask  him.  Can  you 
tell  me,  Sir,  to  whose  care  you  have  entrusted  your  horses? 
I  can  tell  you.  Have  you  entrusted  them  to  any  person  in- 
differently and  to  one  who  has  no  experience  of  horses  ? — By 
no  means. — Well  then ;  can  you  tell  me  to  whom  you  entrust 
your  gold  or  silver  things  or  your  vestments?  I  don't  en- 
trust even  these  to  any  one  indifferently.  Well ;  your  own 
body,  have  you  already  considered  about  entrusting  the  care 
of  it  to  any  person? — Certainly. — To  a  man  of  experience, 
I  suppose,  and  one  acquainted  with  the  aliptic,*  or  with  the 
healing  art? — Without  doubt. — Are  these  the  best  things 
that  you  have,  or  do  you  also  possess  something  else  which  is 
better  than  all  these? — What  kind  of  a  thing  do  you  mean? 
— That  I  mean  which  makes  use  of  these  things,  and  tests 


132  EPICTETUS 

each  of  them,  and  deUberates. — It  is  the  soul  that  you  mean? 
— You  think  right,  for  it  is  the  soul  that  I  mean. — In  truth 
I  do  think  that  the  soul  is  a  much  better  thing  than  all  the 
others  which  I  possess. — Can  you  then  show  us  in  what  way 
you  have  taken  care  of  the  soul  ?  for  it  is  not  likely  that  you, 
who  are  so  wise  a  man  and  have  a  reputation  in  the  city,  in- 
considerately and  carelessly  allow  the  most  valuable  thing 
that  you  possess  to  be  neglected  and  to  perish. — Cer- 
tainly not. — But  have  you  taken  care  of  the  soul  yourself; 
and  have  you  learned  from  another  to  do  this,  or  have  you 
discovered  the  means  yourself  ? — Here  comes  the  danger  that 
in  the  first  place  he  may  say,  What  is  this  to  you,  my  good 
man,  who  are  you?  Next,  if  you  persist  in  troubling  him, 
there  is  danger  that  he  may  raise  his  hands  and  give  you 
blows.  I  was  once  myself  also  an  admirer  of  this  mode  of 
instruction  until  I  fell  into  these  dangers.* 

NOTES 

*  This  is  what  is  said  in  the  Gorgias  of  Plato. 

'  Socrates'  notion  of  envy  is  stated  by  Xenophon  to  be  this :  "it  is  the 
pain  or  vexation  which  men  have  at  the  prosperity  of  their  friends,  and 
that  such  are  the  only  envious  persons."  Bishop  Butler  gives  a  better 
definition ;  at  least  a  more  complete  description  of  the  thing.  "Emulation 
is  merely  the  desire  and  hope  of  equality  with  or  superiority  over  others, 
with  whom  we  may  compare  ourselves.  There  does  not  appear  to  be  any 
other  grief  in  the  natural  passion,  but  only  that  want  which  is  implied 
in  desire.  However  this  may  be  so  strong  as  to  be  the  occasion  of  great 
grief.  To  desire  the  attainment  of  this  equality  or  superiority,  by  the  par- 
ticular means  of  others  being  brought  down  to  our  level,  or  below  it,  is, 
I  think,  the  distinct  notion  of  envy.  From  whence  it  is  easy  to  see,  that 
the  real  end  which  the  natural  passion,  emulation,  and  which  the  unlaw- 
ful one,  envy,  aims  at  is  the  same ;  namely,  that  equality  or  superiority : 
and  consequently  that  to  do  mischief  is  not  the  end  of  envy,  but  merely 
the  means  it  makes  use  of  to  attain  its  end." — Sermons  upon  Human 
Nature,  I. 

*  The  Symposium  or  Banquet  of  Xenophon  is  extant. 

*  Hesiod,  Theogony,  v.  87. 

*  The  aliptic  is  the  art  of  anointing  and  rubbing,  one  of  the  best 
means  of  maintaining  a  body  in  health.  The  iatric  or  healing  art  is  the 
art  of  restoring  to  health  a  diseased  body.  The  aliptic  art  is  also  equiva- 
lent to  the  gymnastic  art,  or  the  art  of  preparing  for  gymnastic  exercises, 
which  are  also  a  means  of  preserving  the  body's  health,  when  the  exer- 
cises are  good  and  moderate. 

*  Epictetus  is  speaking  of  himself  and  of  his  experience  at  Rome. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

ON  ANXIETY  (SOLICITUDE) 

WHEN  I  see  a  man  anxious,  I  say,  What  does  this 
man  want?  If  he  did  not  want  some  thing 
which  is  not  in  his  power,  how  could  he  be 
anxious?  For  this  reason  a  lute  player  when 
he  is  singing  by  himself  has  no  anxiety,  but  when  he  enters 
the  theatre,  he  is  anxious  even  if  he  has  a  good  voice  and 
plays  well  on  the  lute ;  for  he  not  only  wishes  to  sing  well,  but 
also  to  obtain  applause:  but  this  is  not  in  his  power.  Ac- 
cordingly, where  he  has  skill,  there  he  has  confidence.  Bring 
any  single  person  who  knows  nothing  of  music,  and  the 
musician  does  not  care  for  him.  But  in  the  matter  where  a 
man  knows  nothing  and  has  not  been  practised,  there  he  is 
anxious.  What  matter  is  this?  He  knows  not  what  a 
crowd  is  or  what  the  praise  of  a  crowd  is.  However  he  has 
learned  to  strike  the  lowest  chord  and  the  highest ;  but  what 
the  praise  of  the  many  is,  and  what  power  it  has  in  life  he 
neither  knows  nor  has  he  thought  about  it.  Hence  he  must 
of  necessity  tremble  and  grow  pale.  I  can  not  then  say  that 
a  man  is  not  a  lute  player  when  I  see  him  afraid,  but  I  can 
say  something  else,  and  not  one  thing,  but  many.  And  first 
of  all  I  call  him  a  stranger  and  say.  This  man  does  not  know 
in  what  part  of  the  world  he  is,  but  though  he  has  been  here 
so  long,  he  is  ignorant  of  the  laws  of  the  State  and  the  cus- 
toms, and  what  is  permitted  and  what  is  not;  and  he  has 
never  employed  any  lawyer  to  tell  him  and  to  explain  the 
laws.  But  a  man  does  not  write  a  will,  if  he  does  not  know 
how  it  ought  to  be  written,  or  he  employs  a  person  who  does 
know;  nor  does  he  rashly  seal  a  bond  or  write  a  security. 
But  he  uses  his  desire  without  a  lawyer's  advice,  and  aver- 
sion, and  pursuit  (movement),  and  attempt  and  purpose. 
How  do  you  mean  without  a  lawyer?  He  does  not  know 
that  he  wills  what  is  not  allowed,  and  does  not  will  that 
which  is  of  necessity ;  and  he  does  not  know  either  what  is  his 
own  or  what  is  another  man's ;  but  if  he  did  know,  he  would 

133 


134  EPICTETUS 

never  be  impeded,  he  would  never  be  hindered,  he  would  not 
be  anxious.  How  so  ? — Is  any  man  then  afraid  about  things 
which  are  not  evils  ? — No. — Is  he  afraid  about  things  which 
are  evils,  but  still  so  far  within  his  power  that  they  may  not 
happen? — Certainly  he  is  not. — If  then  the  things  which  are 
independent  of  tlie  will  are  neither  good  nor  bad,  and  all 
things  which  do  depend  on  the  will  are  within  our  power, 
and  no  man  can  either  take  them  from  us  or  give  them  to  us, 
if  we  do  not  choose,  where  is  room  left  for  anxiety?  But 
we  are  anxious  about  our  poor  body,  our  little  property, 
about  the  will  of  Caesar ;  but  not  anxious  about  things  inter- 
nal. Are  we  anxious  about  not  forming  a  false  opinion? — 
No,  for  this  is  in  my  power. — About  not  exerting  our  move- 
ments contrary  to  nature  ? — No,  not  even  about  this. — When 
then  you  see  a  man  pale,  as  the  physician  says,  judging  from 
the  complexion,  this  man's  spleen  is  disordered,  that  man's 
liver;  so  also  say,  this  man's  desire  and  aversion  are  disor- 
dered, he  is  not  in  the  right  way,  he  is  in  a  fever.  For  noth- 
ing else  changes  the  colour,  or  causes  trembling  or  chattering 
of  the  teeth,  or  causes  a  man  to 

"Sink  in  his  knees  and  shift  from  foot  to  foot"' — 

For  this  reason  when  Zeno  was  going  to  meet  Antigonus,* 
he  was  not  anxious,  for  Antigonus  had  no  power  over  any 
of  the  things  which  Zeno  admired ;  and  Zeno  did  not  care  for 
those  things  over  which  Antigonus  had  power.  But  Anti- 
gonus was  anxious  when  he  was  going  to  meet  Zeno,  for  he 
wished  to  please  Zeno;  but  this  was  a  thing  external  (out  of 
his  power).  But  Zeno  did  not  want  to  please  Antigonus; 
for  no  man  who  is  skilled  in  any  art  wishes  to  please  one  who 
has  no  such  skill. 

Should  I  try  to  please  you?  Why?  I  suppose,  you 
know  the  measure  by  which  one  man  is  estimated  by  another. 
Have  you  taken  pains  to  learn  what  is  a  good  man  and  what 
is  a  bad  man,  and  how  a  man  becomes  one  or  the  other? 
Why  then  are  you  not  good  yourself  ? — How,  he  replies,  am 
I  not  good? — Because  no  good  man  laments  or  groans  or 
weeps,  no  good  man  is  pale  and  trembles,  or  says,  How  will 
he  receive  me,  how  will  he  listen  to  me? — Slave,  just  as  it 


DISCOURSES  135 

pleases  him.  Why  do  you  care  about  what  belongs  to 
others?  Is  it  now  his  fault  if  he  receives  badly  what  pro- 
ceeds from  you  ? — Certainly. — And  is  it  possible  that  a  fault 
should  be  one  man's,  and  the  evil  in  another? — No. — Why 
then  are  you  anxious  about  that  which  belongs  to  others? 
— Your  question  is  reasonable ;  but  I  am  anxious  how  I  shall 
speak  to  him.  Can  not  you  then  speak  to  him  as  you  choose  ? 
— But  I  fear  that  I  may  be  disconcerted  ? — If  you  are  going 
to  write  the  name  of  Dion,  are  you  afraid  that  you  would  be 
disconcerted? — By  no  means. — Why?  is  it  not  because  you 
have  practised  writing  the  name? — Certainly. — Well,  if  you 
were  going  to  read  the  name,  would  you  not  feel  the  same? 
and  why  ?  Because  every  art  has  a  certain  strength  and  con- 
fidence in  the  things  which  belong  to  it. — Have  you  then  not 
practised  speaking?  and  what  else  did  you  learn  in  the 
school  ?  Syllogisms  and  sophistical  propositions  ?  For  what 
purpose  ?  was  it  not  for  the  purpose  of  discoursing  skilfully  ? 
and  is  not  discoursing  skilfully  the  same  as  discoursing  sea- 
sonably and  cautiously  and  with  intelligence,  and  also  with- 
out making  mistakes  and  without  hindrance,  and  besides  all 
this  with  confidence? — Yes. — When  then  you  are  mounted  on 
a  horse  and  go  into  a  plain,  are  you  anxious  at  being  matched 
against  a  man  who  is  on  foot,  and  anxious  in  a  matter  in 
which  you  are  practised,  and  he  is  not  ? — Yes,  but  that  person 
(to  whom  I  am  going  to  speak)  has  power  to  kill  me.^ 
Speak  the  truth  then,  unhappy  man,  and  do  not  brag,  nor 
claim  to  be  a  philosopher,  nor  refuse  to  acknowledge  your 
masters,  but  so  long  as  you  present  this  handle  in  your  body, 
follow  every  man  who  is  stronger  than  yourself.  Socrates 
used  to  practise  speaking,  he  who  talked  as  he  did  to  the 
tyrants,*  to  the  dicasts  (judges),  he  who  talked  in  his  prison. 
Diogenes  had  practised  speaking,  he  who  spoke  as  he  did  to 
Alexander,  to  the  pirates,  to  the  person  who  bought  him. 
These  men  were  confident  in  the  things  which  they  practised. 
But  do  you  walk  off  to  your  own  affairs  and  never  leave 
them :  go  and  sit  in  a  comer,  and  weave  syllogisms,  and  pro- 
pose them  to  another.  There  is  not  in  you  the  man  who  can 
rule  a  state. 


136  EPICTETUS 

NOTES 

*  Iliad,  xiii.  281. 

*  In  Diogenes  Laertius  (Zeno,  vii.)  there  is  a  letter  from  Antigonus 
to  Zeno  and  Zeno's  answer.  Simplicius  (note  on  the  Encheiridion,  c.  51) 
supposes  this  Antigonus  to  be  the  King  of  Syria;  but  Upton  remarks 
that  it  is  Antigonus  Gonatas,  king  of  Macedonia. 

*  The  original  is  "but  that  person  (  iKel'voi  )  has  power  to  kill  me." 
"That  person"  must  be  the  person  already  mentioned,  and  Mrs.  Carter 
has  done  right  in  adding  this  explanation. 

*  The  Thirty  tyrants  of  Athens,  as  they  were  called.  The  talk  of  Soc- 
rates with  Critias  and  Charicles  two  of  the  Thirty  is  reported  in  Xeno- 
phon's  "Memorabilia"  (i.  2,  33).  The  defence  of  Socrates  before  those 
who  tried  him  and  his  conversation  in  prison  are  reported  in  Plato's 
"Apology,"  and  in  the  "Phaedon"  and  "Crito,"  Diogenes  was  captured 
by  some  pirates  and  sold  (iv.  i,  115). 


CHAPTER  XIV 

TO  NASO 

WHEN  a  certain  Roman  entered  with  his  son  and 
hstened  to  one  reading,  Epictetus  said,  This  is 
the  method  of  instruction;  and  he  stopped. 
When  the  Roman  asked  him  to  go  on,  Epictetus 
said,  Every  art  when  it  is  taught  causes  labour  to  him  who 
is  unacquainted  with  it  and  is  unskilled  in  it,  and  indeed  the 
things  which  proceed  from  the  arts  immediately  show  their 
use  in  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  made;  and  most  of 
them  contain  something  attractive  and  pleasing.  For  indeed 
to  be  present  and  to  observe  how  a  shoemaker  learns  is  not  a 
pleasant  thing;  but  the  shoe  is  useful  and  also  not  disagree- 
able to  look  at.  And  the  discipline  of  a  smith  when  he  is 
learning  is  very  disagreeable  to  one  who  chances  to  be 
present  and  is  a  stranger  to  the  art :  but  the  work  shows  the 
use  of  the  art.  But  you  will  see  this  much  more  in  music ; 
for  if  you  are  present  while  a  person  is  learning,  the  disci- 
pline will  appear  most  disagreeable;  and  yet  the  results  of 
music  are  pleasing  and  delightful  to  those  who  know  noth- 
ing of  music.  And  here  we  conceive  the  work  of  a  phi- 
losopher to  be  something  of  this  kind :  he  must  adapt  his  wish 
{povXtjcTtv)  to  what  is  going  on,  so  that  neither  any  of  the 
things  which  are  taking  place  shall  take  place  contrary  to  our 
wish,  nor  any  of  the  things  which  do  not  take  place  shall  not 
take  place  when  we  wish  that  they  should.  From  this  the 
result  is  to  those  who  have  so  arranged  the  work  of  phi- 
losophy, not  to  fail  in  the  desire,  nor  to  fall  in  with  that  which 
they  should  avoid ;  without  uneasiness,  without  fear,  without 
perturbation  to  pass  through  life  themselves,  together  with 
their  associates  maintaining  the  relations  both  natural  and 
acquired,^  as  the  relation  of  son,  of  father,  of  brother,  of  citi- 
zen, of  man,  of  wife,  of  neighbour,  of  fellow  traveller,  of 
ruler,  of  ruled.  The  work  of  a  philosopher  we  conceive  to  be 
something  like  this.  It  remains  next  to  inquire  how  this 
must  be  accomplished. 


138  EPICTETUS 

We  see  then  that  the  carpenter  (rcVrcov)  when  he  has 
learned  certain  things  becomes  a  carpenter;  the  pilot  by 
learning  certain  things  becomes  a  pilot.  May  it  not  then  in 
philosophy  also  not  be  sufficient  to  wish  to  be  wise  and  good, 
and  that  there  is  also  a  necessity  to  learn  certain  things  ?  We 
inquire  then  what  these  things  are.  The  philosophers  say 
that  we  ought  first  to  learn  that  there  is  a  God  and  that  he 
provides  for  all  things ;  also  that  it  is  not  possible  to  conceal 
from  him  our  acts,  or  even  our  intentions  and  thoughts.^ 
The  next  thing  is  to  learn  what  is  the  nature  of  the  Gods ;  for 
such  as  they  are  discovered  to  be,  he,  who  would  please  and 
obey  them,  must  try  with  all  his  power  to  be  like  them.  If 
the  divine  is  faithful,  man  also  must  be  faithful ;  if  it  is  free, 
man  also  must  be  free;  if  beneficent,  man  also  must  be  bene- 
ficent ;  if  magnanimous,  man  also  must  be  magnanimous ;  as 
being  then  an  imitator  of  God  he  must  do  and  say  every  thing 
consistently  with  this  fact. 

With  what  then  must  we  begin?  If  you  will  enter  on 
the  discussion,  I  will  tell  you  that  you  must  first  understand 
names  (words). — So  then  you  say  that  I  do  not  now  under- 
stand names. — You  do  not  understand  them. — How  then  do 
I  use  them? — ^Just  as  the  illiterate  use  written  language,  as 
cattle  use  appearances :  for  use  is  one  thing,  understanding  is 
another.  But  if  you  think  that  you  understand  them,  pro- 
duce whatever  word  you  please,  and  let  us  try  whether  we 
understand  it. — But  it  is  a  disagreeable  thing  for  a  man  to 
be  confuted  who  is  now  old,  and,  it  may  be,  has  now  served 
his  three  campaigns. — I  too  know  this :  for  now  you  are 
come  to  me  as  if  you  were  in  want  of  nothing:  and  what 
could  you  even  imagine  to  be  wanting  to  you?  You  are 
rich,  you  have  children  and  a  wife  perhaps,  and  many  slaves : 
Caesar  knows  you,  in  Rome  you  have  many  friends,  you 
render  their  dues  to  all,  you  know  how  to  requite  him  who 
does  you  a  favour,  and  to  repay  in  the  same  kind  him  who 
does  you  a  wrong.  What  do  you  lack  ?  If  then  I  shall  shew 
you  that  you  lack  the  things  most  necessary  and  the  chief 
things  for  happiness,  and  that  hitherto  you  have  looked  after 
every  thing  rather  than  what  you  ought,  and  to  crown  all," 
that  you  neither  know  what  God  is  nor  what  man  is,  nor 
what  is  good  nor  what  is  bad;  and  as  to  what  I  have  said 


DISCOURSES  1 39 

about  your  ignorance  of  other  matters,  that  may  perhaps  be 
endured,  but  if  I  say  that  you  know  nothing  about  yourself, 
how  is  it  possible  that  you  should  endure  me  and  bear  the 
proof  and  stay  here  ?  It  is  not  possible ;  but  you  immediately 
go  off  in  bad  humour.  And  yet  what  harm  have  I  done 
you?  unless  the  mirror  also  injures  the  ugly  man  because  it 
shows  him  to  himself  such  as  he  is ;  unless  the  physician  also 
is  supposed  to  insult  the  sick  man,  when  he  says  to  him,  Man, 
do  you  think  that  you  ail  nothing  ?  But  you  have  a  fever : 
go  without  food  to-day;  drink  water.  And  no  one  says, 
what  an  insult !  But  if  you  say  to  a  man.  Your  desires  are 
inflamed,  your  aversions  are  low,  your  intentions  are  incon- 
sistent, your  pursuits  (movements)  are  not  conformable  to 
nature,  your  opinions  are  rash  and  false,  the  man  immedi- 
ately goes  away  and  says.  He  has  insulted  me. 

Our  way  of  dealing  is  like  that  of  a  crowded  assembly. 
Beasts  are  brought  to  be  sold  and  oxen ;  and  the  greater  part 
of  the  men  come  to  buy  and  sell,  and  there  are  some  few  who 
come  to  look  at  the  market  and  to  inquire  how  it  is  carried 
on,  and  why,  and  who  fixes  the  meeting  and  for  what  pur- 
pose. So  it  is  here  also  in  this  assembly  (of  life)  :  some 
like  cattle  trouble  themselves  about  nothing  except  their 
fodder.  For  to  all  of  you  who  are  busy  about  possessions 
and  lands  and  slaves  and  magisterial  offices,  these  are  noth- 
ing except  fodder.  But  there  are  a  few  who  attend  the  as- 
sembly, men  who  love  to  look  on  and  consider  what  is  the 
world,  who  governs  it.  Has  it  no  governor  ?  And  how  is 
it  possible  that  a  city  or  a  family  can  not  continue  to  exist, 
not  even  the  shortest  time  without  an  administrator  and 
guardian,  and  that  so  great  and  beautiful  a  system  should  be 
administered  with  such  order  and  yet  without  a  purpose  and 
by  chance?*  There  is  then  an  administrator.  What  kind 
of  administrator  and  how  does  he  govern?  And  who  are 
we,  who  were  produced  by  him,  and  for  what  purpose? 
Have  we  some  connexion  with  him  and  some  relation  to- 
wards him,  or  none?  This  is  the  way  in  which  these  few 
are  affected,  and  then  they  apply  themselves  only  to  this  one 
thing,  to  examine  the  meeting  and  then  to  go  away.  What 
then  ?  They  are  ridiculed  by  the  many,  as  the  spectators  at 
the  fair  are  by  the  traders ;  and  if  the  beasts  had  any  under- 


I40  EPICTETUS 

Standing,  they  would  ridicule  those  who  admired  anything 
else  than  fodder. 

NOTES 

*  Compare  iii.  2,  4,  iv.  8,  20.  Antoninus  (viii.  27)  writes :  "There  are 
three  relations  [between  thee  and  other  things] :  the  one  to  the  body 
which  surrounds  thee ;  the  second  to  the  divine  cause  from  which  all 
things  come  to  all ;  and  the  third  to  those  who  live  with  thee."  This  is 
precise,  true  and  practical.  Those  who  object  to  "the  divine  cause,"  may 
write  in  place  of  it  "the  nature  and  constitution  of  things ;"  for  there  is 
a  constitution  of  things,  which  the  philosopher  attempts  to  discover ;  and 
for  most  practical  purposes,  it  is  immaterial  whether  we  say  that  it  is 
of  divine  origin  or  has  some  other  origin,  or  no  origin  can  be  discov- 
ered. The  fact  remains  that  a  constitution  of  things  exists ;  or,  if  that 
expression  be  not  accepted,  we  may  say  that  we  conceive  that  it  exists 
and  we  can  not  help  thinking  so. 

'  When  God  is  said  to  provide  for  all  things,  this  is  what  the  Greeks 
called  TCpovota,  providence.  (Epictetus,  i.  16,  iii.  17.)  In  the  second  of 
these  passages  there  is  a  short  answer  to  some  objections  made  to  Provi- 
dence. 

Epictetus  could  only  know  or  believe  what  God  is  by  the  observation 
of  phenomena;  and  he  could  only  know  what  he  supposed  to  be  God's 
providence  by  observing  his  administration  of  the  world  and  all  that 
happens  in  it.  Among  other  works  of  God  is  man,  who  possesses  certain 
intellectual  powers  which  enable  him  to  form  a  judgment  of  God's 
works,  and  a  judgment  of  man  himself.  Man  has  or  is  supposed  to  have 
certain  moral  sentiments,  or  a  capacity  of  acquiring  them  in  some  way. 
On  the  supposition  that  all  man's  powers  are  the  gift  of  God,  man's 
power  of  judging  what  happens  in  the  world  under  God's  providence  is 
the  gift  of  God;  and  if  he  should  not  be  satisfied  with  God's  administra- 
tion, we  have  the  conclusion  that  man,  whose  powers  are  from  God,  con- 
demns that  administration  which  is  also  from  God.  Thus  God  and  man, 
who  is  God's  work,  are  in  opposition  to  one  another. 

If  a  man  rejects  the  belief  in  a  deity  and  in  a  providence,  because 
of  the  contradictions  and  difficulties  involved  in  this  belief  or  supposed 
to  be  involved  in  it,  and  if  he  finds  the  contradictions  and  difficulties  such 
as  he  can  not  reconcile  with  his  moral  sentiments  and  judgments,  he  will 
be  consistent  in  rejecting  the  notion  of  a  deity  and  of  providence.  But 
he  must  also  consistently  admit  that  his  moral  sentiments  and  judg- 
ments are  his  own,  and  that  he  can  not  say  how  he  acquired  them,  or 
how  he  has  any  of  the  corporeal  or  intellectual  powers  which  he  is  daily 
using.  By  the  hypothesis  they  are  not  from  God.  All  then  that  a  man 
can  say  is  that  he  has  such  powers. 

*  The  original  is  "to  add  the  colophon,"  which  is  a  proverbial  expres- 
sion and  signifies  to  give  the  last  touch  to  a  thing. 

*  From  the  fact  that  man  has  some  intelligence  Voltaire  concludes  that 
we  must  admit  that  there  is  a  greater  intelligence.  Letter  to  Mde. 
Necker. 


CHAPTER  XV 

TO  OR  AGAINST  THOSE  WHO  OBSTINATELY  PERSIST  IN  WHAT 
THEY    HAVE   DETERMINED 

WHEN  some  persons  have  heard  these  words,  that  a 
man  ought  to  be  constant  (firm),  and  that  the 
will  is  naturally  free  and  not  subject  to  compul- 
sion, but  that  all  other  things  are  subject  to 
hindrance,  to  slavery,  and  are  in  the  power  of  others,  they 
suppose  that  they  ought  without  deviation  to  abide  by  every 
thing  which  they  have  determined.  But  in  the  first  place 
that  which  has  been  determined  ought  to  be  sound  (true). 
I  require  tone  (sinews)  in  the  body,  but  such  as  exists  in  a 
healthy  body,  in  an  athletic  body ;  but  if  it  is  plain  to  me  that 
you  have  the  tone  of  a  phrensied  man  and  you  boast  of  it,  I 
shall  say  to  you,  man,  seek  the  physician :  this  is  not  tone,  but 
atony  (deficiency  in  right  tone).  In  a  different  way  some- 
thing of  the  same  kind  is  felt  by  those  who  listen  to  these  dis- 
courses in  a  wrong  manner ;  which  was  the  case  with  one  of 
my  companions  who  for  no  reason  resolved  to  starve  himself 
to  death.^  I  heard  of  it  when  it  was  the  third  day  of  his 
abstinence  from  food  and  I  went  to  inquire  what  had  hap- 
pened. I  have  resolved,  he  said. — But  still  tell  me  what  it 
was  which  induced  you  to  resolve;  for  if  you  have  resolved 
rightly,  we  shall  sit  with  you  and  assist  you  to  depart ;  but  if 
you  have  made  an  imreasonable  resolution,  change  your 
mind. — We  ought  to  keep  to  our  determinations. — What  are 
you  doing,  man  ?  We  ought  to  keep  not  to  all  our  determi- 
nations, but  to  those  which  are  right ;  for  if  you  are  now  per- 
suaded that  it  is  night,  do  not  change  your  mind,  if  you 
think  fit,  but  persist  and  say,  we  ought  to  abide  by  our  deter- 
minations. Will  you  not  make  the  beginning  and  lay  the 
foundation  in  an  inquiry  whether  the  determination  is  sound 
or  not  sound,  and  so  then  build  on  it  firmness  and  security? 
But  if  you  lay  a  rotten  and  ruinous  foundation,  will  not  your 
miserable  little  building  fall  down  the  sooner,  the  more  and 
the  stronger  are  the  materials  which  you  shall  lay  on  it? 

141 


142  EPICTETUS 

Without  any  reason  would  you  withdraw  from  us  out  of  life 
a  man  who  is  a  friend,  and  a  companion,  a  citizen  of  the  same 
city,  both  the  great  and  the  small  city  ?^  Then  while  you  are 
committing  murder  and  destroying  a  man  who  has  done  no 
wrong,  do  you  say  that  you  ought  to  abide  by  your  deter- 
minations ?  And  if  it  ever  in  any  way  came  into  your  head 
to  kill  me,  ought  you  to  abide  by  your  determinations  ? 

Now  this  man  was  with  difficulty  persuaded  to  change  his 
mind.  But  it  is  impossible  to  convince  some  persons  at  pres- 
sent;  so  that  I  seem  now  to  know,  what  I  did  not  know  be- 
fore, the  meaning  of  the  common  saying.  That  you  can 
neither  persuade  nor  break  a  fool.'  May  it  never  be  my  lot 
to  have  a  wise  fool  for  my  friend :  nothing  is  more  untract- 
able.  "I  am  determined,"  the  man  says.  Madmen  are  also ; 
but  the  more  firmly  they  form  a  judgment  on  things  which 
do  not  exist,  the  more  ellebore^  they  require.  Will  you  not 
act  like  a  sick. man  and  call  in  the  physician? — I  am  sick, 
master,  help  me;  consider  what  I  must  do;  it  is  my  duty  to 
obey  you.  So  it  is  here  also :  I  know  not  what  I  ought  to  do, 
but  I  am  come  to  learn. — Not  so;  but  speak  to  me  about 
other  things:  upon  this  I  have  determined. — What  other 
things  ?  for  what  is  greater  and  more  useful  than  for  you  to 
be  persuaded  that  it  is  not  sufficient  to  have  made  your  deter- 
mination and  not  to  change  it.  This  is  the  tone  (energy) 
of  madness,  not  of  health. — I  will  die,  if  you  compel  me  to 
this. — Why,  man?  What  has  happened? — I  have  deter- 
mined— I  have  had  a  lucky  escape  that  you  have  not  deter- 
mined to  kill  me — I  take  no  money.'*  Why  ? — I  have  deter- 
mined— Be  assured  that  with  the  very  tone  (energy)  which 
you  now  use  in  refusing  to  take,  there  is  nothing  to  hinder 
you  at  some  time  from  inclining  without  reason  to  take 
money  and  then  saying,  I  have  determined.  As  in  a  distem- 
pered body,  subject  to  defluxions,  the  humour  inclines  some- 
times to  these  parts,  and  then  to  those,  so  too  a  sickly  soul 
knows  not  which  way  to  incline :  but  if  to  this  inclination  and 
movement  there  is  added  a  tone  (obstinate  resolution),  then 
the  evil  becomes  past  help  and  cure. 


DISCOURSES  143 

NOTES 

*The  wprd  is  aieoKaprepsrv,  which  Cicero  (Tusc.  i.  34)  renders  "per 
inediam  vita  discedere."  The  words  "I  have  resolved"  are  in  Epictetus, 
KSKptKa.  Pliny  (Epp.  i.  12)  says  that  Corellius  Rufus,  when  he  de- 
termined to  end  his  great  sufferings  by  starvation  made  the  same  answer, 
KEKpiKa,  to  the  physician  who  offered  him  food. 

'  The  great  city  is  the  world. 

*  The  meaning  is  that  you  can  not  lead  a  fool  from  his  purpose  either 
by  words  or  force.  "A  wise  fool"  must  mean  a  fool  who  thinks  himself 
wise ;  and  such  we  sometimes  see.  "Though  thou  shouldst  bray  a  fool  in 
the  mortar  among  wheat  with  a  pestle,  yet  will  not  his  foolishness  de- 
part from  him."     Proverbs,  xxvii.  22. 

*  Ellebore  was  a  medicine  used  in  madness.  Horace  says,  Sat.  ii.  3. 
82— 

"Danda  est  ellebori  multo  pars  maxima  avaris." 

*  "Epictetus  seems  in  this  discussion  to  be  referring  to  some  pro- 
fessor, who  had  declared  that  he  would  not  take  money  from  his  hearers, 
and  then,  indirectly  at  least,  had  blamed  our  philosopher  for  receiving 
some  fee  from  his  hearers."    Schweig. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THAT  WE  DO  NOT  STRIVE  TO  USE  OUR  OPINIONS  ABOUT  GOOD 

AND  EVIL 

WHERE  is  the  good?  In  the  will.*  Where  is  the 
evil?  In  the  will.  Where  is  neither  of  them? 
In  those  things  which  are  independent  of  the  will. 
Well  then?  Does  any  one  among  us  think  of 
these  lessons  out  of  the  schools?  Does  any  one  meditate 
(strive)  by  himself  to  give  an  answer  to  things^  as  in  the 
case  of  questions?  Is  it  day? — Yes. — Is  it  night? — No. — 
Well,  is  the  number  of  stars  even  ?^ — I  can  not  say. — Wheft 
money  is  shown  (offered)  to  you,  have  you  studied  to  make 
the  proper  answer,  that  money  is  not  a  good  thing?  Have 
you  practised  yourself  in  these  answers,  or  only  against 
sophisms  ?  Why  do  you  wonder  then  if  in  the  cases  which 
you  have  studied,  in  those  you  have  improved ;  but  in  those 
which  you  have  not  studied,  in  those  you  remain  the  same? 
When  the  rhetorician  knows  that  he  has  written  well,  that  he 
has  committed  to  memory  what  he  has  written,  and  brings 
an  agreeable  voice,  why  is  he  still  anxious?  Because  he  is 
not  satisfied  with  having  studied.  What  then  does  he  want? 
To  be  praised  by  the  audience?  For  the  purpose  then  of 
being  able  to  practise  declamation  he  has  been  disciplined; 
but  with  respect  to  praise  and  blame  he  has  not  been  disci- 
plined. For  when  did  he  hear  from  any  other  what  praise  is, 
what  blame  is,  what  the  nature  of  each  is,  what  kind  of  praise 
should  be  sought,  or  what  kind  of  blame  should  be  shunned  ? 
And  when  did  he  practise  this  discipline  which  follows  these 
words  (things)  ?*  Why  then  do  you  still  wonder,  if  in  the 
matters  which  a  man  has  learned,  there  he  surpasses  others, 
and  in  those  in  which  he  has  not  been  disciplined,  there  he  is 
the  same  with  the  many.  So  the  lute  player  knows  how  to 
play,  sings  well,  and  has  a  fine  dress,  and  yet  he  trembles 
when  he  enters  on  the  stage;  for  these  matters  he  under- 
stands, but  he  does  not  know  what  a  crowd  is,  nor  the  shouts 
of  a  crowd,  nor  what  ridicule  is.    Neither  does  he  know  what 

X44 


DISCOURSES  145 

anxiety  is,  whether  it  is  our  work  or  the  work  of  another, 
whether  it  is  possible  to  stop  it  or  not.  For  this  reason  if 
he  has  been  praised,  he  leaves  the  theatre  puffed  up,  but  if  he 
has  been  ridiculed,  the  swollen  bladder  has  been  punctured 
and  subsides. 

This  is  the  case  also  with  ourselves.  What  do  we  admire  ? 
Externals.  About  what  things  are  we  busy?  Externals. 
And  have  we  any  doubt  then  why  we  fear  or  why  we  are 
anxious?  What  then  happens  when  we  think  the  things, 
which  are  coming  on  us,  to  be  evils  ?  It  is  not  in  our  power 
not  to  be  afraid,  it  is  not  in  our  power  not  to  be  anxious. 
Then  we  say,  Lord  God,  how  shall  I  not  be  anxious  ?  Fool, 
have  you  not  hands,  did  not  God  make  them  for  you  ?  Sit 
down  now  and  pray  that  your  nose  may  not  run.  Wipe 
yourself  rather  and  do  not  blame  him.  Well  then,  has  he 
given  to  you  nothing  in  the  present  case  ?  Has  he  not  given 
to  you  endurance  ?  has  he  not  given  to  you  magnanimity  ?  has 
he  not  given  to  you  manliness  ?  When  you  have  such  hands, 
do  you  still  look  for  one  who  shall  wipe  your  nose?  But  we 
neither  study  these  things  nor  care  for  them.  Give  me  a 
man  who  cares  how  he  shall  do  any  thing,  not  for  the  obtain- 
ing of  a  thing,  but  who  cares  about  his  own  energy.  What 
man,  when  he  is  walking  about,  cares  for  his  own  energy? 
who,  when  he  is  deliberating,  cares  about  his  own  delibera- 
tion, and  not  about  obtaining  that  about  which  he  deliber- 
ates? And  if  he  succeeds,  he  is  elated  and  says,  How  well 
we  have  deliberated ;  did  I  not  tell  you,  brother,  that  it  is  im- 
possible, when  we  have  thought  about  any  thing,  that  it 
should  not  turn  out  thus  ?  But  if  the  thing  should  turn  out 
otherwise,  the  wretched  man  is  humbled ;  he  knows  not  even 
what  to  say  about  what  has  taken  place.  Who  among  us  for 
the  sake  of  this  matter  has  consulted  a  seer?  Who  among 
us  as  to  his  actions  has  not  slept  in  indifference?  Who? 
Give  (name)  to  me  one  that  I  may  see  the  man  whom  I  have 
long  been  looking  for,  who  is  truly  noble  and  ingenuous, 
whether  young  or  old ;  name  him. 

Why  then  are  we  still  surprised,  if  we  are  well  practised 
in  thinking  about  matters  (any  given  subject),  but  in  our 
acts  are  low,  without  decency,  worthless,  cowardly,  impatient 
of  labour,  altogether  bad  ?     For  we  do  not  care  about  these 


146  EPICTETUS 

things  nor  do  we  study  them.  But  if  we  had  feared  not 
death  or  banishment,  but  fear  itself,  we  should  have  studied 
not  to  fall  into  those  things  which  appear  to  us  evils.  Now 
in  the  school  we  are  irritable  and  wordy;  and  if  any  little 
question  arises  about  any  of  these  things,  we  are  able  to 
examine  them  fully.  But  drag  us  to  practice,  and  you  will 
find  us  miserably  shipwrecked.  Let  some  disturbing  appear- 
ance come  on  us,  and  you  will  know  what  we  have  been 
studying  and  in  what  we  have  been  exercising  ourselves. 
Consequently  through  want  of  discipline  we  are  always  add- 
ing something  to  the  appearance  and  representing  things  to 
be  greater  than  what  they  are.  For  instance  as  to  myself, 
when  I  am  on  a  voyage  and  look  down  on  the  deep  sea,  or 
look  round  on  it  and  see  no  land,  I  am  out  of  my  mind  and 
imagine  that  I  must  drink  up  all  this  water  if  I  am  wrecked, 
and  it  does  not  occur  to  me  that  three  pints  are  enough. 
What  then  disturbs  me?  The  sea?  No,  but  my  opinion. 
Again,  when  an  earthquake  shall  happen,  I  imagine  that  the 
city  is  going  to  fall  on  me ;  but  is  not  one  little  stone  enough 
to  knock  my  brains  out  ? 

What  then  are  the  things  which  are  heavy  on  us  and  dis- 
turb us  ?  What  else  than  opinions  ?  What  else  than  opin- 
ions lie  heavy  upon  him  who  goes  away  and  leaves  his  com- 
panions and  friends  and  places  and  habits  of  life?  Now 
little  children,  for  instance,  when  they  cry  on  the  nurse  leav- 
ing them  for  a  short  time,  forget  their  sorrow  if  they  receive 
a  small  cake.  Do  you  choose  then  that  we  should  compare 
you  to  little  children  ? — No,  by  Zeus,  for  I  do  not  wish  to  be 
pacified  by  a  small  cake,  but  by  right  opinions. — And  what 
are  these  ?  Such  as  a  man  ought  to  study  all  day,  and  not  to 
be  affected  by  any  thing  that  is  not  his  own,  neither  by  com- 
panion nor  place  nor  gymnasia,  and  not  even  by  his  own 
body,  but  to  remember  the  law  and  to  have  it  before  his  eyes. 
And  what  is  the  divine  law?  To  keep  a  man's  own,  not  to 
claim  that  which  belongs  to  others,  but  to  use  what  is  given, 
and  when  it  is  not  given,  not  to  desire  it ;  and  when  a  thing  is 
taken  away,  to  give  it  up  readily  and  immediately,  and  to  be 
thankful  for  the  time  that  a  man  has  had  the  use  of  it,  if  you 
would  not  cry  for  your  nurse  and  mamma.  For  what  mat- 
ter does  it  make  by  what  thing  a  man  is  subdued,  and  on 


DISCOURSES  f47 

what  he  depends?  In  what  respect  are  you  better  than  he 
who  cries  for  a  girl,  if  you  grieve  for  a  little  gymnasium,  and 
little  porticoes  and  young  men  and  such  places  of  amuse- 
ment ?  Another  comes  and  laments  that  he  shall  no  longer 
drink  the  water  of  Dirce.  Is  the  Marcian  water  worse  than 
that  of  Dirce  ?  But  I  was  used  to  the  water  of  Dirce.*^  And 
you  in  turn  will  be  used  to  the  other.  Then  if  you  become 
attached  to  this  also,  cry  for  this  too,  and  try  to  make  a  verse 
like  the  verse  of  Euripides, 

"The  hot  baths  of  Nero  and  the  Marcian  water." 

See  how  tragedy  is  made  when  common  things  happen  to 
silly  men. 

When  then  shall  I  see  Athens  again  and  the  Acropolis? 
Wretch,  are  you  not  content  with  what  you  see  daily?  have 
you  any  thing  better  or  greater  to  see  than  the  sun,  the  moon, 
the  stars,  the  whole  earth,  the  sea  ?  But  if  indeed  you  com- 
prehend him  who  administers  the  Whole,  and  carry  him 
about  in  yourself,  do  you  still  desire  small  stones,  and  a  beau- 
tiful rock?^  When  then  you  are  going  to  leave  the  sun  itself 
and  the  moon,  what  will  you  do  ?  will  you  sit  and  weep  like 
children?  Well,  what  have  you  been  doing  in  the  school? 
what  did  you  hear,  what  did  you  learn?  why  did  you  write 
yourself  a  philosopher,  when  you  might  have  written  the 
truth ;  as,  "I  made  certain  introductions,'^  and  I  read  Chrysip- 
pus,  but  I  did  not  even  approach  the  door  of  a  philosopher." 
For  how  should  I  possess  any  thing  of  the  kind  which  Soc- 
rates possessed,  who  died  as  he  did,  who  lived  as  he  did,  or 
any  thing  such  as  Diogenes  possessed?  Do  you  think  that 
any  one  of  such  men  wept  or  grieved,  because  he  was  not 
going  to  see  a  certain  man,  or  a  certain  woman,  nor  to  be 
in  Athens  or  in  Corinth,  but,  if  it  should  so  happen,  in  Susa 
or  in  Ecbatana  ?  For  if  a  man  can  quit  the  banquet  when  he 
chooses,  and  no  longer  amuse  himself,  does  he  still  stay  and 
complain,  and  does  he  not  stay,  as  at  any  amusement,  only  so 
long  as  he  is  pleased  ?  Such  a  man,  I  suppose,  would  endure 
perpetual  exile  or  to  be  condemned  to  death.  Will  you  not 
be  weaned  now,  like  children,  and  take  more  solid  food,  and 
not  cry  after  mammas  and  nurses,  which  are  the  lamentations 


148  EPICTETUS 

of  old  women  ? — But  if  I  go  away,  I  shall  cause  them  sorrow. 
— You  cause  them  sorrow?  By  no  means;  but  that  will 
cause  them  sorrow  which  also  causes  you  sorrow,  opinion. 
What  have  you  to  do  then  ?  Take  away  your  own  opinion, 
and  if  these  women  are  wise,  they  will  take  away  their  own : 
if  they  do  not,  they  will  lamoit  through  their  own  fault 

My  man,  as  the  proverb  says,  make  a  desperate  effort  on 
behalf  of  tranquillity  of  mind,  freedom  and  magnanimity. 
Lift  up  your  head  at  last  as  released  from  slavery.  Dare 
to  look  up  to  God  and  say.  Deal  with  me  for  the  future  as 
thou  wilt ;  I  am  of  the  same  mind  as  thou  art ;  I  am  thine : 
I  refuse  nothing  that  pleases  thee :  lead  me  where  thou  wilt : 
clothe  me  in  any  dress  thou  choosest:  is  it  thy  will  that  I 
should  hold  the  office  of  a  magistrate,  that  I  should  be  in  the 
condition  of  a  private  man,  stay  here  or  be  an  exile,  be  poor, 
be  rich  ?  I  will  make  thy  defence  to  men  in  behalf  of  all  these 
conditions :  I  will  shew  the  nature  of  each  thing  what  it  is. — 
You  will  not  do  so ;  but  sit  in  an  ox's  belly  and  wait  for  your 
mamma  till  she  shall  feed  you.  Who  would  Hercules  have 
been,  if  he  had  sat  at  home?  He  would  have  been  Eurystheus 
and  not  Hercules.  Well,  and  in  his  travels  through  the  world 
how  many  intimates  and  how  many  friends  had  he?  But 
nothing  more  dear  to  him  than  God.  For  this  reason  it  was 
believed  that  he  was  the  son  of  God,  and  he  was.  In  obedi- 
ence to  God  then  he  went  about  purging  away  injustice  and 
lawlessness.  But  you  are  not  Hercules  and  you  are  not 
able  to  purge  away  the  wickedness  of  others ;  nor  yet  are  you 
Theseus,  able  to  purge  away  the  evil  things  of  Attica.  Qear 
away  your  own.  From  yourself,  from  your  thoughts  cast 
away  instead  of  Procrustes  and  Sdron,®  sadness,  fear,  desire, 
envy,  malevolence,  avarice,  effeminacy,  intemperance.  But 
it  is  not  possible  to  eject  these  things  otherwise  than  by  look- 
ing to  God  only,  by  fixing  your  affections  on  him  only,  by 
being  consecrated  to  his  commands.  But  if  you  choose  any 
thing  else,  you  will  with  sighs  and  gpx>ans  be  compelled  to  fol- 
low* what  is  stronger  than  yourself,  always  seddng  tran- 
quillity and  never  able  to  find  it;  for  you  sedc  tranquillity 
there  where  it  is  not,  and  you  n^ect  to  seek  it  where  it  is. 


DISCOURSES  149 

NOTKS 

*  See  ii.  10,  as 

''"To  answer  to  things"  means  to  act  in  a  way  suitable  to  drcom- 
stances,  to  be  a  matdi  for  tbem. 

*  Perhaps  this  was  a  common  puzde.  The  man  answers  right ;  he  can 
pot  say. 

*  That  is  which  follows  praise  or  blame.  He  seems  to  mean  making 
the  proper  use  of  praise  or  of  blame. 

*  Diree  a  pure  stream  in  Bopotia,  which  flows  into  the  Ismenns.  The 
Marcian  water  is  the  Marcian  aqueduct  at  Rome,  which  was  constructed 
B.C  144,  and  was  the  best  water  that  Rome  had.  Some  of  the  arches  of 
this  aqueduct  exist  The  "bright  stream  of  Dirce"  is  spoken  of  in  the 
"Hercules  Furens"  of  Euripides  (v.  573).  The  verse  in  the  text  which 
we  may  suppose  that  Epictetus  made,  has  a  spondee  in  the  fourth  place, 
which  is  contrary  to  the  rule. 

•The  "small  stones"  are  supposed  to  be  the  marbles  which  decorated 
Athens,  and  the  rock  to  be  the  Acropolis. 

'In  the  original  it  is  Eicrayoayai.  It  was  a  name  used  for  short 
commentaries  on  the  principles  of  anv  art;  such  as  we  now  call  Intro- 
ductions. O^mpendiums.  Ellements.     Gellius,  x\a.  8. 

*  Procru.stes  and  Sciron,  two  robbers  who  infested  Attica  and  were 
destroyed  by  Theseus,  as  Plutarch  tells  in  his  life  of  Theseus. 

*  Antoninus  x.  aS,  "only  to  the  rational  animal  is  it  given  to  follow 
Toltmtarily  what  happens :  but  simply  to  follow  is  a  necessity  imposed  00 
alL"    Compare  Scocca^  Quest.  Nat.  ii  ^ 


CHAPTER  XVII 

HOW    WE    MUST    ADAPT    PRECONCEPTIONS    TO    PARTICULAR 

CASES 

WHAT  is  the  first  business  of  him  who  philoso- 
phizes ?  To  throw  away  self  conceit  ( ozT^di? )  } 
For  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  begin  to 
learn  that  which  he  thinks  that  he  knows.  As 
to  things  then  which  ought  to  be  done  and  ought  not 
to  be  done,  and  good  and  bad,  and  beautiful  and  ugly, 
all  of  us  talking  of  them  at  random  go  to  the  phi- 
losophers; and  on  these  matters  we  praise,  we  censure,  we 
accuse,  we  blame,  we  judge  and  determine  about  principles 
honourable  and  dishonourable.  But  why  do  we  go  to  the 
philosophers?  Because  we  wish  to  learn  what  we  do  not 
think  that  we  know.  And  what  is  this  ?  Theorems.^  For 
we  wish  to  learn  what  philosophers  say  as  being  something 
elegant  and  acute ;  and  some  wish  to  learn  that  they  may  get 
profit  from  what  they  learn.  It  is  ridiculous  then  to  think 
that  a  person  wishes  to  learn  one  thing,  and  will  learn  an- 
other; or  further,  that  a  man  will  make  proficiency  in  that 
which  he  does  not  learn.  But  the  many  are  deceived  by  this 
which  deceived  also  the  rhetorician  Theopompus,*  when  he 
blames  even  Plato  for  wishing  everything  to  be  defined. 
For  what  does  he  say?  Did  none  of  us  before  you  use  the 
words  Good  or  Just,  or  do  we  utter  the  sounds  in  an  unmean- 
ing and  empty  way  without  understanding  what  they  sever- 
ally signify  ?  Now  who  tells  you,  Theopompus,  that  we  had 
not  natural  notions  of  each  of  these  things  and  preconcep- 
tions {itpoXrf^Bii)  ?  But  it  is  not  possible  to  adapt  precon- 
ceptions to  their  correspondent  objects  if  we  have  not  dis- 
tinguished (analyzed)  them,  and  inquired  what  object  must 
be  subjected  to  each  preconception.  You  may  make  the 
same  charge  against  physicians  also.  For  who  among  us 
did  not  use  the  words  healthy  and  unhealthy  before  Hippo- 
crates lived,  or  did  we  utter  these  words  as  empty  sounds? 
For  we  have  also  a  certain  preconception  of  health,  but  we 

150 


DISCOURSES  151 

are  not  able  to  adapt  it.  For  this  reason  one  says,  abstain 
from  food ;  another  says,  give  food ;  another  says,  bleed ;  and 
another  says,  use  cupping.  What  is  the  reason?  is  it  any 
other  than  that  a  man  can  not  properly  adapt  the  preconcep- 
tion of  health  to  particulars  ? 

So  it  is  in  this  matter  also,  in  the  things  which  concern  life. 
Who  among  us  does  not  speak  of  good  and  bad,  of  useful 
and  not  useful ;  for  who  among  us  has  not  a  preconception  of 
each  of  these  things?  Is  it  then  a  distinct  and  perfect  pre- 
conception? Show  this.  How  shall  I  show  this?  Adapt 
the  preconception  properly  to  the  particular  things.  Plato, 
for  instance,  subjects  definitions  to  the  preconception  of  the 
useful,  but  you  to  the  preconception  of  the  useless.  Is  it 
possible  then  that  both  of  you  are  right?  How  is  it  possi- 
ble ?  Does  not  one  man  adapt  the  preconception  of  good  to 
the  matter  of  wealth,  and  another  not  to  wealth,  but  to  the 
matter  of  pleasure  and  to  that  of  health  ?  For,  generally,  if 
all  of  us  who  use  those  words  know  sufficiently  each  of  them, 
and  need  no  diligence  in  resolving  (making  distinct)  the  no- 
tions of  the  preconceptions,  why  do  we  differ,  why  do  we 
quarrel,  why  do  we  blame  one  another  ? 

And  why  do  I  now  allege  this  contention  with  one  another 
and  speak  of  it?  If  you  yourself  properly  adapt  your  pre- 
conceptions, why  are  you  unhappy,  why  are  you  hindered? 
Let  us  omit  at  present  the  second  topic  about  the  pursuits 
{ppfiai)  and  the  study  of  the  duties  which  relate  to  them. 
Let  us  omit  also  the  third  topic,  which;  relates  to  the  assents 
{dvyKaToQeaeii) :  I  give  up  to  you  these  two  topics.  Let  us 
insist  upon  the  first,  which  presents  an  almost  obvious  de- 
monstration that  we  do  not  properly  adapt  the  preconcep- 
tions. Do  you  now  desire  that  which  is  possible  and  that 
which  is  possible  to  you?  Why  then  are  you  hindered? 
why  are  you  unhappy?  Do  you  not  now  try  to  avoid  the 
unavoidable  ?  Why  then  do  you  fall  in  with  any  thing  which 
you  would  avoid  ?  Why  are  you  unfortunate  ?  Why,  when 
you  desire  a  thing,  does  it  not  happen,  and,  when  you  do  not 
desire  it,  does  it  happen?  For  this  is  the  greatest  proof  of 
unhappiness  and  misery ;  I  wish  for  something,  and  it  does 
not  happen.     And  what  is  more  wretched  than  I  ? 

It  was  because  she  could  not  endure  this  that  Medea  came 


152  EPICTETUS 

to  murder  her  children :  an  act  of  a  noble  spirit  in  this  view 
at  least,  for  she  had  a  just  opinion  what  it  is  for  a  thing  not 
to  succeed  which  a  person  wishes.  Then  she  says,  "Thus  I 
shall  be  avenged  on  him  (my  husband)  who  has  wronged 
and  insulted  me ;  and  what  shall  I  gain  if  he  is  punished  thus  ? 
how  then  shall  it  be  done?  I  shall  kill  my  children,  but  I 
shall  punish  myself  also ;  and  what  do  I  care?"*  This  is  the 
aberration  of  soul  which  possesses  great  energy.  For  she 
did  not  know  wherein  lies  the  doing  of  that  which  we  wish; 
that  you  can  not  get  this  from  without,  nor  yet  by  the  altera- 
tion and  new  adaptation  of  things.  Do  not  desire  the  man 
(Jason,  Medea's  husband),  and  nothing  which  you  desire 
will  fail  to  happen:  do  not  obstinately  desire  that  he  shall 
live  with  you :  do  not  desire  to  remain  in  Corinth ;  and  in  a 
word  desire  nothing  than  that  which  God  wills. — And  who 
shall  hinder  you?  who  shall  compel  you?  No  man  shall 
compel  you  any  more  than  he  shall  compel  Zeus. 

When  you  have  such  a  guide  and  your  wishes  and  desires 
are  the  same  as  his,  why  do  you  still  fear  disappointment? 
Give  up  your  desire  to  wealth  and  your  aversion  to  poverty, 
and  you  will  be  disappointed  in  the  one,  you  will  fall  into  the 
other.  Well  give  them  up  to  health,  and  you  will  be  unfor- 
tunate: give  them  up  to  magistracies,  honours,  country, 
friends,  children,  in  a  word  to  any  of  the  things  which  are 
not  in  man's  power  (and  you  will  be  unfortunate).  But 
give  them  up  to  Zeus  and  to  the  rest  of  the  gods ;  surrender 
them  to  the  gods,  let  the  gods  govern,  let  your  desire  and 
aversion  be  ranged  on  the  side  of  the  gods,  and  wherein  will 
you  be  any  longer  unhappy?  But  if,  lazy  wretch,  you  envy, 
and  complain,  and  are  jealous  and  fear,  and  never  cease  for  a 
single  day  complaining  both  of  yourself  and  of  the  gods,  why 
do  you  still  speak  of  being  educated?  What  kind  of  an 
education,  man  ?    Do  you  mean  that  you  have  been  employed 

about     sophistical     syllogisms  {dvWoyid/iovg  /leTaxiTtrovrai)? 

Will  you  not,  if  it  is  possible,  unlearn  all  these  things  and 
begin  from  the  beginning,  and  see  at  the  same  time  that 
hitherto  you  have  not  even  touched  the  matter;  and  then 
commencing  from  this  foundation,  will  you  not  build  up  all 
that  comes  after,  so  that  nothing  may  happen  which  you  do 


DISCOURSES  153 

not  choose,  and  nothing  shall  fail  to  happen  which  you  do 
choose? 

Give  me  one  young  man  who  has  come  to  the  school  with 
this  intention,  who  is  become  a  champion  for  this  matter 
and  says,  "I  give  up  everything  else,  and  it  is  enough  for  me 
if  it  shall  ever  be  in  my  power  to  pass  my  life  free  from 
hindrance  and  free  from  trouble,  and  to  stretch  out  (present) 
my  neck  to  all  things  like  a  free  man,  and  to  look  up  to 
heaven  as  a  friend  of  God  and  fear  nothing  that  can  happen." 
Let  any  of  you  point  out  such  a  man  that  I  may  say,  "Come, 
young  man,  into  the  possession  of  that  which  is  your  own, 
for  it  is  your  destiny  to  adorn  philosophy:  yours  are  these 
possessions,  yours  these  books,  yours  these  discourses'/ 
Then  when  he  shall  have  laboured  sufficiently  and  exercised 
himself  in  this  part  of  the  matter  (  ronov ) ,  let  him  come  to 
me  again  and  say,  "I  desire  to  be  free  from  passion  and  free 
from  perturbation ;  and  I  wish  as  a  pious  man  and  a  philoso- 
pher and  a  diligent  person  to  know  what  is  my  duty  to  the 
gods,  what  to  my  parents,  what  to  my  brothers,  what  to  my 
country,  what  to  strangers."  (I  say)  "Come  also  to  the 
second  matter  {roitov)  :  this  also  is  yours." — "But  I  have 
now  sufficiently  studied  the  second  part  {roitov')  also,  and 
I  would  gladly  be  secure  and  unshaken,  and  not  only  when 
I  am  awake,  but  also  when  I  am  asleep,  and  when  I  am  filled 
with  wine,  and  when  I  am  melancholy."  Man,  you  are  a 
god,  you  have  great  designs. 

No :  but  I  wish  to  understand  what  Chrysippus  says  in  his 
treatise  of  the  "Pseudomenos""^  (the  Liar). — Will  you  not 
hang  yourself,  wretch,  with  such  your  intention  ?  And  what 
good  will  it  do  you  ?  You  will  read  the  whole  with  sorrow, 
and  you  will  speak  to  others  trembling.  Thus  you  also  do. 
"Do  you  wish  me,®  brother,  to  read  to  you,  and  you  to  me"  ? 
— You  write  excellently,  my  man ;  and  you  also  excellently  in 
the  style  of  Xenophon,  and  you  in  the  style  of  Plato,  and  you 
in  the  style  of  Antisthenes.  Then  having  told  your  dreams 
to  one  another  you  return  to  the  same  things :  your  desires 
are  the  same,  your  aversions  the  same,  your  pursuits  are  the 
same,  and  your  designs  and  purposes,  you  wish  for  the  same 
things  and  work  for  the  same.  In  the  next  place  you  do  not 
even  seek  for  one  to  give  you  advice,  but  you  are  vexed  if 


154  EPICTETUS 

you  hear  such  things  (as  I  say).  Then  you  say,  "An  ill-na- 
tured old  fellow :  when  I  was  going  away,  he  did  not  weep 
nor  did  he  say,  Into  what  danger  you  are  going :  if  you  come 
off  safe,  my  child,  I  will  burn  lights.  This  is  what  a  good 
natured  man  would  do."  It  will  be  a  great  thing  for  you  if 
you  do  return  safe,  and  it  will  be  worth  while  to  burn  lights 
for  such  a  person :  for  you  ought  to  be  immortal  and  exempt 
from  disease. 

Casting  away  then,  as  I  say,  this  conceit  of  thinking  that 
we  know  something  useful,  we  must  come  to  philosophy  as 
we  apply  to  geometry,  and  to  music :  but  if  we  do  not,  we 
shall  not  even  approach  to  proficiency  though  we  read  all  the 
collections  and  commentaries  of  Chrysippus  and  those  of 
Antipater  and  Archedemus. 

NOTES 

*  See  ii.  ii,  i,  and  iii.  14,  8. 

'Theorems  are  defined  by  Cicero,  "De  Fato,"  c.  6,  "Percepta  appello 
quae  dicuntur  Graece  BEooprmara." 

*  This  rhetorician  or  orator,  as  Epictetus  names  him,  appears  to  be 
the  same  person  as  Theopompus  of  Chios,  the  historian. 

*  This  is  the  meaning  of  what  Medea  says  in  the  "Medea"  of  Euripides. 
Epictetus  does  not  give  the  words  of  the  poet. 

*  The  "Pseudomenos"  was  a  treatise  by  Chrysippus.  "The  Pseudo- 
menos  was  a  famous  problem  among  the  Stoics,  and  it  is  this.  When  a 
person  says,  I  lie;  doth  he  lie,  or  doth  he  not?  If  he  lies,  he  speaks 
truth :  if  he  speaks  truth,  he  lies.  The  philosophers  composed  many 
books  on  this  difficulty.  Chrysippus  wrote  six.  Philetas  wasted  himself 
in  studying  to  answer  it." — Mrs.  Carter. 

*  Epictetus  is  ridiculing  the  men  who  compliment  one  another  on  their 
writings.  Upton  compares  Horace,  Epp.  ii.  2,  87. 

"ut  alter 
Alterius  sermone  meros  audiret  honores — 
Discedo  Alcaeus  puncto  illius?   ille  meo  quis?. 
iQtiis  nisi  Callimachus  ?" 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

HOW  WE  SHOULD  STRUGGLE  AGAINST  APPEARANCES 

EVERY  habit  and  faculty  is  maintained  and  increased 
by  the  corresponding  actions:  the  habit  of  walking 
by  walking,  the  habit  of  running  by  running.  If 
you  would  be  a  good  reader,  read ;  if  a  writer,  write. 
But  when  you  shall  not  have  read  for  thirty  days  in  succes- 
sion, but  have  done  something  else,  you  will  know  the  con- 
sequence. In  the  same  way,  if  you  shall  have  lain  down  ten 
days,  get  up  and  attempt  to  make  a  long  walk,  and  you  will 
see  how  your  legs  are  weakened.  Generally  then  if  you 
would  make  any  thing  a  habit,  do  it ;  if  you  would  not  make 
it  a  habit,  do  not  do  it,  but  accustom  yourself  to  do  something 
else  in  place  of  it. 

So  it  is  with  respect  to  the  affections  of  the  soul :  when 
you  have  been  angry,  you  must  know  that  not  only  has  this 
evil  befallen  you,  but  that  you  have  also  increased  the  habit, 
and  in  a  manner  thrown  fuel  upon  fire.  When  you  have 
been  overcome  in  sexual  intercourse  with  a  person,  do  not 
reckon  this  single  defeat  only,  but  reckon  that  you  have  also 
nurtured,  increased  your  incontinence.  For  it  is  impossible 
for  habits  and  faculties,  some  of  them  not  to  be  produced, 
when  they  did  not  exist  before,  and  others  not  be  increased 
and  strengthened  by  corresponding  acts. 

In  this  manner  certainly,  as  philosophers  say,  also  diseases 
of  the  mind  grow  up.  For  when  you  have  once  desired 
money,  if  reason  be  applied  to  lead  to  a  perception  of  the  evil, 
the  desire  is  stopped,  and  the  ruling  faculty  of  our  mind  is 
restored  to  the  original  authority.  But  if  you  apply  no 
means  of  cure,  it  no  longer  returns  to  the  same  state,  but 
being  again  excited  by  the  corresponding  appearance,  it  is 
inflamed  to  desire  quicker  than  before :  and  when  this  takes 
place  continually,  it  is  henceforth  hardened  (made  callous), 
and  the  disease  of  the  mind  confirms  the  love  of  money.  For 
he  who  has  had  a  fever,  and  has  been  relieved  from  it,  is  not 
in  the  same  state  that  he  was  before,  unless  he  has  been  com- 

155 


1 56  EPICTETUS 

pletely  cured.  Something  of  the  kind  happens  also  in 
diseases  of  the  soul.  Certain  traces  and  blisters  are  left  in 
it,  and  unless  a  man  shall  completely  efface  them,  when  he  is 
again  lashed  on  the  same  places,  the  lash  will  produce  not 
blisters  (weals)  but  sores.  If  then  you  wish  not  to  be  of  an 
angry  temper,  do  not  feed  the  habit:  throw  nothing  on  it 
which  will  increase  it :  at  first  keep  quiet,  and  count  the  days 
on  which  you  have  not  been  angry.  I  used  to  be  in  passion 
every  day;  now  every  second  day;  then  every  third,  then 
every  fourth.  But  if  you  have  intermitted  thirty  days,  make 
a  sacrifice  to  God.  For  the  habit  at  first  begins  to  be  weak- 
ened, and  then  is  completely  destroyed.  "I  have  not  been 
vexed  to-day,  nor  the  day  after,  nor  yet  on  any  succeeding 
day  during  two  or  three  months ;  but  I  took  care  when  some 
exciting  things  happened."  Be  assured  that  you  are  in  a 
good  way.  To-day  when  I  saw  a  handsome  person,  I  did 
not  say  to  myself,  I  wish  I  could  lie  with  her,  and  Happy  is 
her  husband;  for  he  who  says  this  says,  Happy  is  her  adul- 
terer also.  Nor  do  I  picture  the  rest  to  my  mind ;  the  woman 
present,  and  stripping  herself  and  lying  down  by  my  side. 
I  stroke  my  head  and  say.  Well  done,  Epictetus,  you  have 
solved  a  fine  little  sophism,  much  finer  than  that  which  is 
called  the  master  sophism.  And  if  even  the  woman  is  will- 
ing, and  gives  signs,  and  sends  messages,  and  if  she  also 
fondle  me  and  come  close  to  me,  and  I  should  abstain  and  be 
victorious,  that  would  be  a  sophism  beyond  that  which  is 
named  the  Liar,  and  the  Quiescent.  Over  such  a  victory  as 
this  a  man  may  justly  be  proud ;  not  for  proposing  the  master 
sophism. 

How  then  shall  this  be  done?  Be  willing  at  length  to 
be  approved  by  yourself,  be  willing  to  appear  beautiful  to 
God,  desire  to  be  in  purity  with  your  own  pure  self  and  with 
God.  Then  when  any  such  appearance  visits  you,  Plato  says, 
"Have  recourse  to  expiations,  go  a  suppliant  to  the  tem- 
ples of  the  averting  deities."  It  is  even  sufficient  if  you  resort 
to  the  society  of  noble  and  just  men,  and  compare  yourself 
with  them,  whether  you  find  one  who  is  living  or  dead.  Go 
to  Socrates  and  see  him  lying  down  with  Alcibiades,  and 
mocking  his  beauty :  consider  what  a  victory  he  at  last  found 
that  he  had  gained  over  himself ;  what  an  Olympian  victory ; 


DISCOURSES  157 

in  what  number  he  stood  from  Hercules;*  so  that,  by  the 
Gods,  one  may  justly  salute  him.  Hail,  wondrous  man,  you 
who  have  conquered  not  these  sorry  boxers  and  pancratiasts, 
nor  yet  those  who  are  like  them,  the  gladiators.  By  placing 
these  objects  on  the  other  side  you  will  conquer  the  appear- 
ance :  you  will  not  be  drawn  away  by  it.  But  in  the  first 
place  be  not  hurried  away  by  the  rapidity  of  the  appearance, 
but  say,  Appearances,  wait  for  me  a  little :  let  me  see  who  you 
are,  and  what  you  are  about :  let  me  put  you  to  the  test.  And 
then  do  not  allow  the  appearance  to  lead  you  on  and  draw 
lively  pictures  of  the  things  which  will  follow;  for  if  you 
do,  it  will  carry  you  off  wherever  it  pleases.  But  rather 
bring  in  to  oppose  it  some  other  beautiful  and  noble  appear- 
ance and  cast  out  this  base  appearance.  And  if  you  are  ac- 
customed to  be  exercised  in  this  way,  you  will  see  what 
shoulders,  what  sinews,  what  strength  you  have.  But  now 
it  is  only  trifling  words,  and  nothing  more. 

This  is  the  true  athlete,  the  man  who  exercises  himself 
against  such  appearances.  Stay,  wretch,  do  not  be  carried 
away.  Great  is  the  combat,  divine  is  the  work;  it  is  for 
kingship,  for  freedom,  for  happiness,  for  freedom  from  per- 
turbation. Remember  God :  call  on  him  as  a  helper  and  pro- 
tector, as  men  at  sea  call  on  the  Dioscuri^  in  a  storm.  For 
what  is  a  greater  storm  than  that  which  comes  from  appear- 
ances which  are  violent  and  drive  away  the  reason  ?  For  the 
storm  itself,  what  else  is  it  but  an  appearance?  For  take 
away  the  fear  of  death,  and  suppose  as  many  thunders  and 
lightnings  as  you  please,  and  you  will  know  what  calm'  and 
serenity  there  is  in  the  ruling  faculty.  But  if  you  have  once 
been  defeated  and  say  that  you  will  conquer  hereafter,  and 
then  say  the  same  again,  be  assured  that  you  will  at  last  be  in 
so  wretched  a  condition  and  so  weak  that  you  will  not  even 
know  afterwards  that  you  are  doing  wrong,  but  you  will 
even  begin  to  make  apologies  (defences)  for  your  wrong 
doing,  and  then  you  will  confirm  the  saying  of  Hesiod*  to  be 

true, 

"  With  constant  ills  the  dilatory  strives." 

NOTES 

*  Hercules  is  said  to  have  established  gymnastic  contests  and  to  have 
been  die  first  victor.    Those  who  gained  the  victory  both  in  wrestling 


158 


EPICTETUS 


and  in  the  pancratium  were  reckoned  in  the  list  of  victors  as  coming  in 
the  second  or  third  place  after  him,  and  so  on. 

*  Castor  and  Pollux.    Horace,  Carm.  i.  12 : — 

"Quorum  simul  alba  nautis 
Stella  refulsit,  etc." 

* "  Consider  that  every  thing  is  opinion,  and  opinion  is  in  thy  power. 
Take  away  then,  when  thou  choosest,  thy  opinion,  and  like  a  mariner, 
who  has  doubled  the  promontory,  thou  wilt  find  calm,  every  thing  stable, 
and  a  waveless  bay."     Antoninus,  xiL 

*  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  v.  411. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

AGAINST   THOSE    WHO    EMBRACE    PHILOSOPHICAL   OPINIONS 
ONLY  IN  WORDS 

THE  argument  called  the  ruling  argument  (6  Kvptevoov 
Xoyoi)  appears  to  have  been  proposed  from  such 
principles  as  these:  there  is  in  fact  a  common  con- 
tradiction between  one  another  in  these  three  propo- 
sitions, each  two  being  in  contradiction  to  the  third.  The 
propositions  are,  that  every  thing  past  must  of  necessity  be 
true ;  that  an  impossibility  does  not  follow  a  possibility ;  and 
that  a  thing  is  possible  which  neither  is  nor  will  be  true. 
Diodorus^  observing  this  contradiction  employed  the  proba- 
tive force  of  the  first  two  for  the  demonstration  of  this  pro- 
position. That  nothing  is  possible  which  is  not  true  and 
never  will  be.  Now  another  will  hold  these  two :  That  some- 
thing is  possible,  which  is  neither  true  nor  ever  will  be :  and 
That  an  impossibility  does  not  follow  a  possibility.  But 
he  will  not  allow  that  every  thing  which  is  past  is  necessarily 
true,  as  the  followers  of  Cleanthes  seem  to  think,  and  Anti- 
pater  copiously  defended  them.  But  others  maintain  the 
other  two  propositions,  That  a  thing  is  possible  which  is 
neither  true  nor  will  be  true:  and  That  everything  which 
is  past  is  necessarily  true ;  but  then  they  will  maintain  that  an 
impossibility  can  follow  a  possibility.  But  it  is  impossible 
to  maintain  these  three  propositions,  because  of  their  com- 
mon contradiction.^ 

If  then  any  man  should  ask  me,  which  of  these  propo- 
sitions do  you  maintain?  I  will  answer  him,  that  I  do  not 
know;  but  I  have  received  this  story,  that  Diodorus  main- 
tained one  opinion,  the  followers  of  Panthoides,  I  think,  and 
Cleanthes  maintained  another  opinion,  and  those  of  ChrysifH 
pus  a  third.  What  then  is  your  opinion?  I  was  not  made 
for  this  purpose,  to  examine  the  appearances  that  occur  to 
me,  and  to  compare  what  others  say  and  to  form  an  opinion 
of  my  own  on  the  thing.  Therefore  I  differ  not  at  all 
from  the  grammarian.     Who  was  Hector's  father?     Priam. 

159 


1 60  EPICTETUS 

Who  were  his  brothers  ?  Alexander  and  Deiphobus.  Who 
was  their  mother  ?  Hecuba — I  have  heard  this  story.  From 
whom?  From  Homer.  And  Hellanicus  also,  I  think, 
writes  about  the  same  things,  and  perhaps  others  like  him. 
And  what  further  have  I  about  the  ruling  argument  ?  Noth- 
ing. But,  if  I  am  a  vain  man,  especially  at  a  banquet  I 
surprise  the  guests  by  enumerating  those  who  have  written 
on  these  matters.  Both  Chrysippus  has  written  wonder- 
fully in  his  first  book  about  Possibilities,  and  Cleanthes  has 
written  specially  on  the  subject,  and  Archedemus.  Anti- 
pater  also  has  written  not  only  in  his  work  about  Possibil- 
ities, but  also  separately  in  his  work  on  the  ruling  argument. 
Have  you  not  read  the  work?  I  have  not  read  it.  Read. 
And  what  profit  will  a  man  have  from  it?  he  will  be  more 
trifling  and  impertinent  than  he  is  now ;  for  what  else  have 
you  gained  by  reading  it?  What  opinion  have  you  formed 
on  this  subject?  none;  but  you  will  tell  us  of  Helen  and 
Priam,  and  the  island  of  Calypso  which  never  was  and  never 
will  be.  And  in  this  matter  indeed  it  is  of  no  great  impor- 
tance if  you  retain  the  story,  but  have  formed  no  opinion  of 
your  own.  But  in  matters  of  morality  (Ethic)  this  happens 
to  us  much  more  than  in  these  things  of  which  we  are  speak- 
ing. 

Speak  to  me  about  good  and  evil.^     Listen : 

"The  wind  from  Ilium  to  Ciconian  shores 
Brought  me."* 

Of  things  some  are  good,  some  are  bad,  and  others  are 
indifferent.  The  good  then  are  the  virtues  and  the  things 
which  partake  of  the  virtues :  the  bad  are  the  vices,  and  the 
things  which  partake  of  them;  and  the  indifferent  are  the 
things  which  lie  between  the  virtues  and  the  vices,  wealth, 
health,  life,  death,  pleasure,  pain.  Whence  do  you  know 
this?  Hellanicus  says  it  in  his  Egyptian  history;  for  what 
difference  does  it  make  to  say  this,  or  to  say  that  Diogenes 
has  it  in  his  Ethic,  or  Chrysippus  or  Cleanthes  ?  Have  you 
then  examined  any  of  these  things  and  formed  an  opinion  of 
your  own?  Show  how  you  are  used  to  behave  in  a  storm 
on  shipboard?  Do  you  remember  this  division  (distinction 
of  things),  when  the  sail  rattles  and  a  man,  who  knows  noth- 


DISCOURSES  l6l 

ing  of  times  and  seasons,  stands  by  you  when  you  are 
screaming  and  says,  "Tell  me,  I  ask  you  by  the  gods,  what 
you  were  saying  just  now.  Is  it  a  vice  to  suffer  shipwreck : 
does  it  participate  in  vice?"  Will  you  not  take  up  a  stick  and 
lay  it  on  his  head  ?  What  have  we  to  do  with  you,  man  ?  we 
are  perishing  and  you  come  to  mock  us  ?  But  if  Caesar  send 
for  you  to  answer  a  charge,  do  you  remember  the  distinc- 
tion ?  If  when  you  are  going  in  pale  and  trembling,  a  per- 
son should  come  up  to  you  and  say,  "Why  do  you  tremble, 
man?  what  is  the  matter  about  which  you  are  engaged? 
Does  Caesar  who  sits  within  give  virtue  and  vice  to  those 
who  go  in  to  him  ?"  You  reply.  Why  do  you  also  mock  me 
and  add  to  my  present  sorrows? — "Still  tell  me,  philosopher, 
tell  me  why  you  tremble  ?  Is  it  not  death  of  which  you  run 
the  risk,  or  a  prison,  or  pain  of  the  body,  or  banishment,  or 
disgrace?  What  else  is  there?  Is  there  any  vice  or  any- 
thing which  partakes  of  vice?"  What  then  did  you  use  to 
say  of  these  things? — "What  have  you  to  do  with  me,  man? 
my  own  evils  are  enough  for  me."  And  you  say  right. 
Your  own  evils  are  enough  for  you,  your  baseness,  your 
cowardice,  your  boasting  which  you  showed  when  you  sat 
in  the  school.  Why  did  you  decorate  yourself  with  what 
belonged  to  others  ?     Why  did  you  call  yourself  a  Stoic  ? 

Observe  yourselves  thus  in  your  actions,  and  you  will  find 
to  what  sect  you  belong.  You  will  find  that  most  of  you  are 
Epicureans,  a  few  Peripatetics,'^  and  those  feeble.  For 
wherein  will  you  show  that  you  really  consider  virtue  equal 
to  everything  else  or  even  superior  ?  But  show  me  a  Stoic, 
if  you  can.  Where  or  how?  But  you  can  show  me  an 
endless  number  who  utter  small  arguments  of  the  Stoics. 
For  do  the  same  persons  repeat  the  Epicurean  opinions  any 
worse?  And  the  Peripatetic,  do  they  not  handle  them  also 
with  equal  accuracy?  who  then  is  a  Stoic?  As  we  call  a 
statue  Phidiac,  which  is  fashioned  according  to  the  art  of 
Phidias ;  so  show  me  a  man  who  is  fashioned  according  to 
the  doctrines  which  he  utters.  Show  me  a  man  who  is  sick 
and  happy,  in  danger  and  happy,  dying  and  happy,  in  exile 
and  happy,  in  disgrace  and  happy.  Show  him :  I  desire,  by 
the  gods,  to  see  a  Stoic.  You  can  not  show  me  one  fashioned 
so ;  but  show  me  at  least  one  who  is  forming,  who  has  shown 


1 62  EPICTETUS 

a  tendency  to  be  a  Stoic.  Do  me  this  favour :  do  not  grudge 
an  old  man  seeing  a  sight  which  I  have  not  seen  yet.  Do 
you  think  that  you  must  show  me  the  Zeus  of  Phidias  or  the 
Athena,  a  work  of  ivory  and  gold?  Let  any  of  you  show 
me  a  human  soul  ready  to  think  as  God  does,  and  not  to 
blame^  either  God  or  man,  ready  not  to  be  disappointed  about 
any  thing,  not  to  consider  himself  damaged  by  any  thing,  not 
to  be  angry,  not  to  be  envious,  not  to  be  jealous ;  and  why 
should  I  not  say  it  direct?  desirous  from  a  man  to  become 
a  god,  and  in  this  poor  mortal  body  thinking  of  his  fellow- 
ship with  Zeus.''^  Show  me  the  man.  But  you  can  not. 
Why  then  do  you  delude  yourselves  and  cheat  others?  and 
why  do  you  put  on  a  g^ise  which  does  not  belong  to  you,  and 
walk  about  being  thieves  and  pilferers  of  these  names  and 
things  which  do  not  belong  to  you? 

And  now  I  am  your  teacher,  and  you  are  instructed  in  my 
school.  And  I  have  this  purpose,  to  make  you  free  from 
restraint,  compulsion,  hindrance,  to  make  you  free,  prosper- 
ous, happy,  looking  to  God  in  everything  small  and  great. 
And  you  are  here  to  learn  and  practise  these  things.  Why 
then  do  you  not  finish  the  work,  if  you  also  have  such  a  pur- 
pose as  you  ought  to  have,  and  if  I  in  addition  to  the  purpose 
also  have  such  qualification  as  I  ought  to  have?  What  is 
that  which  is  wanting  ?  When  I  see  an  artificer  and  material 
lying  by  him,  I  expect  the  work.  Here  then  is  the  artificer, 
here  the  material ;  what  is  it  that  we  want  ?  Is  not  the  thing 
one  that  can  be  taught  ?  It  is.  Is  it  not  then  in  our  power  ? 
The  only  thing  of  all  that  is  in  our  power.  Neither  wealth 
is  in  our  power,  nor  health,  nor  reputation,  nor  in  a  word 
any  thing  else  except  the  right  use  of  appearances.  This 
(right  use)  is  by  nature  free  from  restraint,  this  alone  is 
free  from  impediment.  Why  then  do  you  not  finish  the 
work?  Tell  me  the  reason.  For  it  is  either  through  my 
fault  that  you  do  not  finish  it,  or  through  your  own  fault,  or 
through  the  nature  of  the  thing.  The  thing  itself  is  possible, 
and  the  only  thing  in  our  power.  It  remains  then  that  the 
fault  is  either  in  me  or  in  you,  or,  what  is  nearer  the  truth, 
in  both.  Well  then,  are  you  willing  that  we  begin  at  last  to 
bring  such  a  purpose  into  this  school,  and  to  take  no  notice  of 


DISCOURSES  163 

the  past?    Let  us  only  make  a  beginning.     Trust  to  me, 
and  you  will  see. 

NOTES 

*  Diodoru's,  sumamed  Cronus,  lived  at  Alexandria  in  the  time  of 
Ptolemoeus  Soter.  He  was  of  the  school  named  the  Megaric,  and  dis- 
tinguished in  dialectic. 

*  If  you  assume  any  two  of  these  three,  they  must  be  in  contradiction 
to  the  third  and  destroy  it. 

*  "Speak  to  me,"  etc.,  may  be  supposed  to  be  said  to  Epictetus,  who 
has  been  ridiculing  logical  subtleties  and  the  grammarians'  learning. 
When  he  is  told  to  speak  of  good  and  evil,  he  takes  a  verse  of  the 
Odyssey,  the  first  which  occurs  to  him,  and  says,  Listen.  There  is  noth- 
ing to  listen  to,  but  it  is  as  good  for  the  hearer  as  anything  else.  Then 
he  utters  some  philosophical  principles,  and  being  asked  where  he 
learned  them,  he  says,  from  Hellanicus,  who  was  an  historian,  not  a 
philosopher.  He  is  bantering  the  hearer :  it  makes  no  matter  from  what 
author  I  learned  them ;  it  is  all  the  same.  The  real  question  is,  have 
you  examined  what  Good  and  Evil  are,  and  have  you  formed  an  opinion 
yourself? 

*  Odyssey,  ix.  39. 

*  The  Peripatetics  allowed  many  things  to  be  good  which  contributed 
to  a  happy  life;  but  still  they  contended  that  the  smallest  mental  excel- 
lence was  superior  to  all  other  things.    Cicero,  De  Fin.  v.  5,  31. 

'  "To  blame  God"  means  to  blame  the  constitution  and  order  of 
things,  for  to  do  this  appeared  to  Epictetus  to  be  absurd  and  wicked; 
as  absurd  as  for  the  potter's  vessel  to  blame  the  potter,  if  that  can  be 
imagined,  for  making  it  liable  to  wear  out  and  to  break. 

^ "  'Our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father  and  with  his  son  Jesus  Christ,* 
I  John  i.  3.  The  attentive  reader  will  observe  several  passages  besides 
those  which  have  been  noticed,  in  which  there  is  a  striking  conformity 
between  Epictetus  and  the  Scriptures :  and  will  perceive  from  them, 
either  that  the  Stoics  had  learned  a  good  deal  of  the  Christian  language 
or  that  treating  a  subject  practically  and  in  earnest  leads  men  to  such 
strong  expressions  as  we  often  find  in  Scripture  and  sometimes  in  the 
philosophers,  especially  Epictetus." — Mrs.  Carter. 


CHAPTER  XX 

AGAINST  THE  EPICUREANS  AND  ACADEMICS 

THE  propositions  which  are  true  and  evident  are  of 
necessity  used  even  by  those  who  contradict  them : 
and  a  man  might  perhaps  consider  it  to  be  the  great- 
est proof  of  a  thing  being  evident  that  it  is  found 
to  be  necessary  even  for  him  who  denies  it  to  make  use  of  it 
at  the  same  time.  For  instance,  if  a  man  should  deny  that 
there  is  anything  universally  true,  it  is  plain  that  he  must 
make  the  contradictory  negation,  that  nothing  is  univer- 
sally true.  What,  wretch,  do  you  not  admit  even  this  ?  For 
what  else  is  this  than  to  affirm  thatwhatever  is  universally  af- 
firmed is  false?  Again  if  a  man  should  come  forward  and 
say :  Know  that  there  is  nothing  that  can  be  known,  but  all 
things  are  incapable  of  sure  evidence;  or  if  another  say. 
Believe  me  and  you  will  be  the  better  for  it,  that  a  man  ought 
not  to  believe  any  thing;  or  again,  if  another  should  say, 
Learn  from  me,  man,  that  it  is  not  possible  to  learn  any 
thing ;  I  tell  you  this  and  will  teach  you,  if  you  choose.  Now 
in  what  respect  do  these  differ  from  those?  Whom  shall  I 
name?  Those  who  call  themselves  Academics?  "Men, 
agree  [with  us]  that  no  man  agrees  [with  another]  :  believe 
us  that  no  man  believes  anybody." 

Thus  Epicurus^  also,  when  he  designs  to  destroy  the  nat- 
ural fellowship  of  mankind,  at  the  same  time  makes  use  of 
that  which  he  destroys.  For  what  does  he  say?  "Be  not 
deceived,  men,  nor  be  led  astray,  nor  be  mistaken :  there  is  no 
natural  fellowship  among  rational  animals ;  believe  me.  But 
those  who  say  otherwise,  deceive  you  and  seduce  you  by  false 
reasons." — What  is  this  to  you?  Permit  us  to  be  deceived. 
Will  you  fare  worse,  if  all  the  rest  of  us  are  persuaded  that 
there  is  a  natural  fellowship  among  us,  and  that  it  ought  by 
all  means  to  be  preserved  ?  Nay,  it  will  be  much  better  and 
safer  for  you.  Man,  why  do  you  trouble  yourself  about  us? 
Why  do  you  keep  awake  for  us?  Why  do  you  light  your 
lamp?     Why  do  you  rise  early?    Why  do  you  write  so 

164 


DISCOURSES  165 

many  books,  that  no  one  of  us  may  be  deceived  about  the 
gods  and  beheve  that  they  take  care  of  men;  or  that  no  one 
may  suppose  the  nature  of  good  to  be  other  than  pleasure? 
For  if  this  is  so,  He  down  and  sleep,  and  lead  the  life  of  a 
worm,  of  which  you  judged  yourself  worthy :  eat  and  drink, 
and  enjoy  women,  and  ease  yourself,  and  snore.^  And  what  is 
it  to  you,  how  the  rest  shall  think  about  these  things,  whether 
right  or  wrong  ?  For  what  have  we  to  do  with  you  ?  You 
take  care  of  sheep  because  they  supply  us  with  wool  and  milk, 
and  last  of  all  with  their  flesh.  Would  it  not  be  a  desirable 
thing  if  men  could  be  lulled  and  enchanted  by  the  Stoics, 
and  sleep  and  present  themselves  to  you  and  to  those  like 
you  to  be  shorn  and  milked  ?  For  this  you  ought  to  say  to 
your  brother  Epicureans:  but  ought  you  not  to  conceal  it 
from  others,  and  particularly  before  every  thing  to  persuade 
them,  that  we  are  by  nature  adapted  for  fellowship,  that  tem- 
perance is  a  good  thing;  in  order  that  all  things  may  be 
secure  for  you?'  Or  ought  we  to  maintain  this  fellowship 
with  some  and  not  with  others  ?  With  whom  then  ought  we 
to  maintain  it  ?  With  such  as  on  their  part  also  maintain  it, 
or  with  such  as  violate  this  fellowship  ?  And  who  violate  it 
more  than  you  who  establish  such  doctrines  ? 

What  then  was  it  that  waked  Epicurus  from  his  sleepiness, 
and  compelled  him  to  write  what  he  did  write?  What  else 
was  it  than  that  which  is  the  strongest  thing  in  men.  Nature, 
which  draws  a  man  to  her  own  will  though  he  be  unwilling 
and  complaining  ?  For  since,  she  says,  you  think  that  there  is 
no  community  among  mankind,  write  this  opinion  and  leave 
it  for  others,  and  break  your  sleep  to  do  this,  and  by  your 
own  practice  condemn  your  own  opinions.  Shall  we  then 
say  that  Orestes  was  agitated  by  the  Erinyes  (Furies)  and 
roused  from  his  deep  sleep,  and  did  not  more  savage  Erinyes 
and  Pains  rouse  Epicurus  from  his  sleep  and  not  allow  him 
to  rest,  but  compelled  him  to  make  known  his  own  evils,  as 
madness  and  wine  did  the  Galli  (the  priests  of  Cybele)  ?  So 
strong  and  invincible  is  man's  nature.  For  how  can  a  vine 
be  moved  not  in  the  manner  of  a  vine,  but  in  the  manner  of 
an  olive  tree  ?  or  on  the  other  hand  how  can  an  olive  tree  be 
moved  not  in  the  manner  of  an  olive  tree,  but  in  the  manner 
of  a  vine?  It  is  impossible :  it  can  not  be  conceived.  Neither 


1 66  '  EPICTETUS 

then  is  it  possible  for  a  man  completely  to  lose  the  movements 
(affects)  of  a  man;  and  even  those  who  are  deprived  of  their 
genital  members  are  not  able  to  deprive  themselves  of  man's 
desires.  Thus  Epicurus  also  mutilated  all  the  offices  of  a 
man,  and  of  a  father  of  a  family,  and  of  a  citizen  and  of  a 
friend,  but  he  did  not  mutilate  human  desires,  for  he  could 
not;  not  more  than  the  lazy  Academics  can  cast  away  or 
blind  their  own  senses,  though  they  have  tried  with  all  their 
might  to  do  it.  What  a  shame  is  this  ?  when  a  man  has  re- 
ceived from  nature  measures  and  rules  for  the  knowing  of 
truth,  and  does  not  strive  to  add  to  these  measures  and  rules 
and  to  improve  them,  but  just  the  contrary,  endeavours  to 
take  away  and  destroy  whatever  enables  us  to  discern  the 
truth? 

What  say  you  philosopher?  piety  and  sanctity,  what  do 
you  think  that  they  are?  If  you  like,  I  will  demonstrate 
that  they  are  good  things.  Well,  demonstrate  it,  that  our 
citizens  may  be  turned  and  honour  the  deity  and  may  no 
longer  be  negligent  about  things  of  the  highest  value.  Have 
you  then  the  demonstrations? — I  have,  and  I  am  thankful. 
— Since  then  you  are  well  pleased  with  them,  hear  the  con- 
trary :  That  there  are  no  Grods,  and,  if  there  are,  they  take 
no  care  of  men,  nor  is  there  any  fellowship  between  us  and 
them;  and  that  this  piety  and  sanctity  which  is  talked  of 
among  most  men  is  the  lying  of  boasters  and  sophists,  or 
certainly  of  legislators  for  the  purpose  of  terrifying  and 
checking  wrong  doers.* — Well  done,  philosopher,  you  have 
done  something  for  our  citizens,  you  have  brought  back  all 
the  young  men  to  contempt  of  things  divine. — What  then, 
does  not  this  satisfy  you?  Learn  now,  that  justice  is  noth- 
ing, that  modesty  is  folly,  that  a  father  is  nothing,  a  son 
nothing. — Well  done,  philosopher,  persist,  persuade  the 
young  men,  that  we  may  have  more  with  the  same  opinions 
as  you  and  who  say  the  same  as  you.  From  such  principles 
as  these  have  gjown  our  well  constituted  states ;  by  these  was 
Sparta  founded :  Lycurgus  fixed  these  opinions  in  the  Spar- 
tans by  his  laws  and  education,  that  neither  is  the  servile  con- 
dition more  base  than  honourable,  nor  the  condition  of  free 
men  more  honourable  than  base,  and  that  those  who  died  at 
Thermopylae*  died  from  these  opinions;  and  through  what 


DISCOURSES  167 

Other  opinions  did  the  Athenians  leave  their  city?®  Then 
those  who  talk  thus,  marry  and  beget  children,  and  employ 
themselves  in  public  affairs  and  make  themselves  priests  and 
interpreters.  Of  whom  ?  of  gods  who  do  not  exist :  and  they 
consult  the  Pythian  priestess  that  they  may  hear  lies,  and 
they  report  the  oracles  to  others.  Monstrous  impudence  and 
imposture. 

Man  what  are  you  doing  ?^  are  you  refuting  yourself  every 
day ;  and  will  you  not  give  up  these  frigid  attempts  ?  When 
you  eat,  where  do  you  carry  your  hand  to  ?  to  your  mouth  or 
to  your  eye  ?  When  you  wash  yourself,  what  do  you  go  into  ? 
Do  you  ever  call  a  pot  a  dish,  or  a  ladle  a  spit  ?  If  I  were  a 
slave  of  any  of  these  men,  even  if  I  must  be  flayed  by  him 
daily,  I  would  rack  him.  If  he  said,  "Boy,  throw  some  olive 
oil  into  the  bath,"  I  would  take  pickle  sauce  and  pour  it  down 
on  his  head.  What  is  this  ?  he  would  say — An  appearance 
was  presented  to  me,  I  swear  by  your  genius,  which  could  not 
be  distinguished  from  oil  and  was  exactly  like  it — Here  give 
me  the  barley-drink  (tisane),  he  says — I  would  fill  and  carry 
him  a  dish  of  sharp  sauce — Did  I  not  ask  for  the  barley 
drink  ?  Yes,  master :  this  is  the  barley  drink  ?  Take  it  and 
smell;  take  it  and  taste.  How  do  you  know  then  if  our 
senses  deceive  us? — If  I  had  three  or  four  fellow-slaves  of 
the  same  opinion,  I  should  force  him  to  hang  himself  through 
passion  or  to  change  his  mind.  But  now  they  mock  us  by 
using  all  the  things  which  nature  gives,  and  in  words  des- 
troying them. 

Grateful  indeed  are  men  and  modest,  who,  if  they  do  noth- 
ing else,  are  daily  eating  bread  and  yet  are  shameless  enough 
to  say,  we  do  not  know  if  there  is  a  Demeter  or  her  daughter 
Persephone  or  a  Pluto  :*  not  to  mention  that  they  are  enjoy- 
ing the  night  and  the  day,  the  seasons  of  the  year,  and  the 
stars,  and  the  sea  and  the  land  and  the  co-operation  of  man- 
kind, and  yet  they  are  not  moved  in  any  degree  by  these 
things  to  turn  their  attention  to  them ;  but  they  only  seek  to 
belch  out  their  little  problem  (matter  for  discussion),  and 
when  they  have  exercised  their  stomach  to  go  off  to  the  bath. 
But  what  they  shall  say,  and  about  what  things  or  to  what 
persons,  and  what  their  hearers  shall  learn  from  this  talk, 
they  care  not  even  in  the  least  degree,  nor  do  they  care  if  any 


1 68  EPICTETUS 

generous  youth  after  hearing  such  talk  should  suffer  any 
harm  from  it,  nor  after  he  has  suffered  harm  should  lose  all 
the  seeds  of  his  generous  nature;  nor  if  we  should  give  an 
adulterer  help  towards  being  shameless  in  his  acts ;  nor  if  a 
public  peculator  should  lay  hold  of  some  cunning  excuse 
from  these  doctrines ;  nor  if  another  who  neglects  his  parents 
should  be  confirmed  in  his  audacity  by  this  teaching. — What 
then  in  your  opinion  is  good  or  bad  ?  This  or  that  ? — Why 
then  should  a  man  say  any  more  in  reply  to  such  persons  as 
these,  or  give  them  any  reason  or  listen  to  any  reason  from 
them,  or  try  to  convince  them?  By  Zeus  one  might  much 
sooner  expect  to  make  catamites  change  their  mind  than 
those  who  are  become  so  deaf  and  blind  to  their  own  evils.^ 

NOTES 

*  Cicero,  de  Fin.  ii.  30.  31,  speaking  of  the  letter,  which  Epicurus  wrote 
to  Hermarchus  when  he  was  dying,  says  "that  the  actions  of  Epicurus 
were  inconsistent  with  his  sayings,"  and  "his  writings  were  confuted 
by  his  probity  and  morality." 

*  Paul  says,  i  Cor.  15  -.32 :  "If  after  the  manner  of  men  I  have  fought 
with  beasts  at  Ephesus,  what  advantageth  it  me,  if  the  dead  rise  not? 
let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  The  words  "let  us  eat  and 
drink,"  etc.  are  said  to  be  a  quotation  from  the  Thais  of  Menander.  The 
meaning  seems  to  be,  that  if  I  do  not  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead,  why  should  I  not  enjoy  the  sensual  pleasures  of  life  only?  This 
is  not  the  doctrine  of  Epictetus,  as  we  see  in  the  text. 

*  It  would  give  security  to  the  Epicureans,  that  they  would  enjoy  all 
that  they  value,  if  other  men  should  be  persuaded  that  we  are  all  made 
for  fellowship,  and  that  temperance  is  a  good  thing. 

*  Polybius  when  he  is  speaking  of  the  Roman  state,  commends  the  men 
of  old  time,  who  established  in  the  minds  of  the  multitude  the  opinions 
about  the  ^ods  and  Hades,  wherein,  he  says,  they  acted  more  wisely  than 
those  in  his  time  who  would  destroy  such  opinions. 

*  Epictetus  alludes  to  the  Spartans  who  fought  at  Thermopylae  B.  C. 
480  against  Xerxes  and  his  army.  Herodotus  has  recorded  the  inscrip- 
tion placed  over  the  Spartans : — 

"Stranger  go  tell  the  Spartans,  Here  we  lie 
Obedient  to  those  who  bade  us  die." 

*When  Xerxes  was  advancing  on  Athens,  the  Athenians  left  the  city 
and  embarked  on  their  vessels  before  the  battle  of  Salamis,  B.C.  480. 

'  He  is  now  attacking  the  Academics,  who  asserted  that  we  can  know 
nothing. 

*  Epictetus  is  speaking  according  to  the  popular  notions.  To  deny 
Demeter  and  to  eat  the  bread  which  she  gives  is  the  same  thing  in  the 
common  notions  of  the  Greeks,  as  it  would  be  for  Epictetus  to  deny  the 
existence  of  God  and  to  eat  the  bread  which  he  gives. 

*"This  resembles  what  our  Saviour  said  to  the  Jewish  rulers:   Verily 


DISCOURSES  169 

I  say  unto  you,  that  the  publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into  the  kingdom  of 
God  before  you."  Matthew,  xxi.  31. — Mrs.  Carter. 

To  an  Academic  who  said  he  comprehended  nothing,  the  Stoic  Ariston 
replied,  "Do  you  not  see  even  the  person  who  is  sitting  near  you?"  When 
the  Academic  denied  it,  Ariston  said,  "Who  made  you  blind?  who  stole 
your  power  of  sight?"    (Diogenes  Laertius,  vii.  163.) 


la 


CHAPTER  XXI 

t 

OF  INCONSISTENCY 

SOME  things  men  readily  confess,  and  other  things  they 
do  not.  No  one  then  will  confess  that  he  is  a  fool  or 
without  understanding;  but  quite  the  contrary  you 
will  hear  all  men  saying,  I  wish  that  I  had  fortune 
equal  to  my  understanding.  But  men  readily  confess  that 
they  are  timid,  and  they  say:  I  am  rather  timid,  I  confess; 
but  as  to  other  respects  you  will  not  find  me  to  be  foolish. 
A  man  will  not  readily  confess  that  he  is  intemperate;  and 
that  he  is  unjust,  he  will  not  confess  at  all.  He  will  by  no 
means  confess  that  he  is  envious  or  a  busy  body.  Most  men 
will  confess  that  they  are  compassionate.  What  then  is  the 
reason? — The  chief  thing  (the  ruling  thing)  is  inconsistency 
and  confusion  in  the  things  which  relate  to  good  and  evil. 
But  different  men  have  different  reasons ;  and  generally  what 
they  imagine  to  be  base,  they  do  not  confess  at  all.  But  they 
suppose  timidity  to  be  a  characteristic  of  a  good  disposition, 
and  compassion  also;  but  silliness  to  be  the  absolute  charac- 
teristic of  a  slave.  And  they  do  not  at  all  admit  (confess) 
the  things  which  are  offences  against  society.  But  in  the 
case  of  most  errors  for  this  reason  chiefly  they  are  induced 
to  confess  them,  because  they  imagine  that  there  is  some- 
thing involuntary  in  them  as  in  timidity  and  compassion; 
and  if  a  man  confess  that  he  is  in  any  respect  intemperate, 
he  alleges  love  (or  passion)  as  an  excuse  for  what  is  involun- 
tary. But  men  do  not  imagine  injustice  to  be  at  all  involun- 
tary. There  is  also  in  jealousy,  as  they  suppose,  something 
involuntary;  and  for  this  reason  they  confess  to  jealousy 
also. 

Living  then  among  such  men,  who  are  so  confused,  so  ig- 
norant of  what  they  say,  and  of  the  evils  which  they  have  or 
have  not,  and  why  they  have  them,  or  how  they  shall  be  re- 
lieved of  them,  I  think  it  is  worth  the  trouble  for  a  man  to 
watch  constantly  (and  to  ask)  whether  I  am  also  one  of 
them,  what  imagination  I  have  about  myself,  how  I  conduct 

170 


DISCOURSES  171 

myself,  whether  I  conduct  myself  as  a  prudent  man,  whether 
I  conduct  myself  as  a  temperate  man,  whether  I  ever  say 
this,  that  I  have  been  taught  to  be  prepared  for  everything 
that  may  happen.  Have  I  the  consciousness,  which  a  man 
who  knows  nothing  ought  to  have,  that  I  know  nothing? 
Do  I  go  to  my  teacher  as  men  go  to  oracles,  prepared  to 
obey  ?  or  do  I  like  a  snivelling  boy  go  to  my  school  to  learn 
history  and  understand  the  books  which  I  did  not  under- 
stand before,  and,  if  it  should  happen  so,  to  explain  them 
also  to  others  ? — Man,  you  have  had  a  fight  in  the  house  with 
a  poor  slave,  you  have  turned  the  family  upside  down,  you 
have  frightened  the  neighbours,  and  you  come  to  me  as  if 
you  were  a  wise  man,  and  you  take  your  seat  and  judge  how 
I  have  explained  some  word,  and  how  I  have  babbled  what- 
ever came  into  my  head.  You  come  full  of  envy,  and  hum- 
bled, because  you  bring  nothing  from  home;  and  you  sit 
during  the  discussion  thinking  of  nothing  else  than  how 
your  father  is  disposed  towards  you  and  your  brother, 
"What  are  they  saying  about  me  there?  now  they  think  that 
I  am  improving,  and  are  saying.  He  will  return  with  all 
knowledge.  I  wish  I  could  learn  every  thing  before  I  re- 
turn :  but  much  labour  is  necessary,  and  no  one  sends  me 
any  thing,  and  the  baths  at  Nicopolis  are  dirty ;  every  thing 
is  bad  at  home,  and  bad  here." 

Then  they  say,  no  one  gains  any  profit  from  the  school. 
— Why,  who  comes  to  the  school?  who  comes  for  the  pur- 
pose of  being  improved  ?  who  comes  to  present  his  opinions 
to  be  purified?  who  comes  to  learn  what  he  is  in  want  of? 
Why  do  you  wonder  then  if  you  carry  back  from  the  school 
the  very  things  which  you  bring  into  it  ?  For  you  come  not 
to  lay  aside  (your  principles)  or  to  correct  them  or  to  re- 
ceive other  principles  in  place  of  them.  By  no  means,  nor 
any  thing  like  it.  You  rather  look  to  this,  whether  you  pos- 
sess already  that  for  which  you  come.  You  wish  to  prattle 
about  theorems  ?  What  then  ?  Do  you  not  become  greater 
triflers?  Do  not  your  little  theorems  give  you  some  oppor- 
tunity of  display?  You  solve  sophistical  syllogisms.  Do 
you  not  examine  the  assumptions  of  the  syllogism  named  the 
Liar  ?  Do  you  not  examine  h5rpothetical  syllogisms  ?  Why 
then  are  you  still  vexed  if  you  receive  the  things  for  which 


172  EPICTETUS 

you  come  to  the  school?  Yes;  but  if  my  child  die  or  my 
brother,  or  if  I  must  die  or  be  racked,  what  good  will  these 
things  do  me? — Well,  did  you  come  for  this?  for  this  do 
you  sit  by  my  side?  did  you  ever  for  this  light  your  lamp  or 
keep  awake?  or,  when  you  went  out  to  the  walking  place, 
did  you  ever  propose  any  appearance  that  had  been  presented 
to  you  instead  of  a  syllogism,  and  did  you  and  your  friends 
discuss  it  together?  Where  and  when?  Then  you  say, 
Theorems  are  useless.  To  whom  ?  To  such  as  make  a  bad 
use  of  them.  For  eye-salves  are  not  useless  to  those  who 
use  them  as  they  ought  and  when  they  ought.  Fomenta- 
tions are  not  useless.  Dumb-bells  are  not  useless;  but  they 
are  useless  to  some,  useful  to  others.  If  you  ask  me  now  if 
syllogisms  are  useful,  I  will  tell  you  that  they  are  useful,  and 
if  you  choose,  I  will  prove  it. — How  then  will  they  in  any 
way  be  useful  to  me  ?  Man,  did  you  ask  if  they  are  useful 
to  you,  or  did  you  ask  generally?  Let  him  who  is  suffer- 
ing from  dysentery,  ask  me  if  vinegar  is  useful ;  I  will  say 
that  it  is  useful. — Will  it  then  be  useful  to  me? — I  will  say, 
no.  Seek  first  for  the  discharge  to  be  stopped  and  the  ulcers 
to  be  closed.  And  do  you,  O  men,  first  cure  the  ulcers  and 
stop  the  discharge;  be  tranquil  in  your  mind,  bring  it  free 
from  distraction  into  the  school,  and  you  will  know  what 
power  reason  has. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

ON  FRIENDSHIP* 

WHAT  a  man  applies  himself  to  earnestly,  that  he 
naturally  loves.  Do  men  then  apply  themselves 
earnestly  to  the  things  which  are  bad?  By  no 
means.  Well,  do  they  apply  themselves  to  things 
which  in  no  way  concern  themselves  ?  not  to  these  either.  It 
remains  then  that  they  employ  themselves  earnestly  only 
about  things  which  are  good ;  and  if  they  are  earnestly  em- 
ployed about  things,  they  love  such  things  also.  Whoever 
then  understands  what  is  good,  can  also  know  how  to  love: 
but  he  who  can  not  distinguish  good  from  bad,  and  things 
which  are  neither  good  nor  bad  from  both,  how  can  he  pos- 
sess the  power  of  loving  ?  To  love  then  is  only  in  the  power 
of  the  wise. 

How  is  this?  a  man  may  say;  I  am  foolish,  and  yet  I 
love  my  child. — I  am  surprised  indeed  that  you  have  begun 
by  making  the  admission  that  you  are  foolish.  For  what 
are  you  deficient  in  ?  Can  you  not  make  use  of  your  senses  ? 
do  you  not  distinguish  appearances?  do  you  not  use  food 
which  is  suitable  for  your  body,  and  clothing  and  habitation  ? 
Why  then  do  you  admit  that  you  are  foolish  ?  It  is  in  truth 
because  you  are  often  disturbed  by  appearances  and  per- 
plexed, and  their  power  of  persuasion  often  conquers  you; 
and  sometimes  you  think  these  things  to  be  good,  and  then 
the  same  things  to  be  bad,  and  lastly  neither  good  nor  bad ; 
and  in  short  you  grieve,  fear,  envy,  are  disturbed,  you  are 
changed.  This  is  the  reason  why  you  confess  that  you  are 
foolish.  And  are  you  not  changeable  in  love?  But  wealth, 
and  pleasure  and  in  a  word  things  themselves,  do  you  some- 
times think  them  to  be  good,  and  sometimes  bad?  and  do 
you  not  think  the  same  men  at  one  time  to  be  good,  at  an- 
other time  bad?  and  have  you  not  at  one  time  a  friendly 
feeling  towards  them,  and  at  another  time  the  feeling  of  an 
enemy  ?  and  do  you  not  at  one  time  praise  them,  and  at  an- 
other time  blame  them?     Yes;  I  have  these  feelings  also. 

173 


174  EPICTETUS 

,Well  then,  do  you  think  that  he  who  has  been  deceived  about 
a  man  is  his  friend?  Certainly  not.  And  he  who  has  se- 
lected a  man  as  his  friend  and  is  of  a  changeable  dispostion, 
has  he  good-will  towards  him?  He  has  not.  And  he  who 
now  abuses  a  man,  and  afterwards  admires  him?  This 
man  also  has  no  good-will  to  the  other.  Well  then,  did  you 
never  see  little  dogs  caressing  and  playing  with  one  another, 
so  that  you  might  say,  there  is  nothing  more  friendly?  but 
that  you  may  know  what  friendship  is,  throw  a  bit  of  flesh 
among  them,  and  you  will  learn.  Throw  between  yourself 
and  your  son  a  little  estate,  and  you  will  know  how  soon  he 
will  wish  to  bury  you  and  how  soon  you  wish  your  son  to 
die.  Then  you  will  change  your  tone  and  say,  what  a  son  I 
have  brought  up !  He  has  long  been  wishing  to  bury  me. 
Throw  a  pretty  girl  between  you ;  and  do  you  the  old  man 
love  her,  and  the  young  one  will  love  her  too.  If  a  little 
fame  intervene  or  dangers,  it  will  be  just  the  same.  You 
will  utter  the  words  of  the  father  of  Admetus ! 

" Life  gives  you  pleasure:  and  why  not  your  father?" * 

Do  you  think  that  Admetus  did  not  love  his  own  child  when 
he  was  little  ?  that  he  was  not  in  agony  when  the  child  had  a 
fever?  that  he  did  not  often  say,  I  wish  I  had  the  fever  in- 
stead of  the  child?  then  when  the  test  (the  thing)  came  and 
was  near,  see  what  words  they  utter.  Were  not  Eteocles 
and  Polynices  from  the  same  mother  and  from  the  same 
father?  Were  they  not  brought  up  together,  had  they  not 
lived  together,  drunk  together,  slept  together,  and  often 
kissed  one  another  ?  So  that,  if  any  man,  I  think,  had  seen 
them,  he  would  have  ridiculed  the  philosophers  for  the  para- 
doxes which  they  utter  about  friendship.  But  when  a  quar- 
rel rose  between  them  about  the  royal  power,  as  between 
dogs  about  a  bit  of  meat,  see  what  they  say 

Polynices.  Where  will  you  take  your  station  before  the  towers? 

Eteocles.  Why  do  you  ask  me  this? 

Pol.  I  will  place  myself  opposite  and  try  to  kill  you. 

Et.  I  also  wish  to  do  the  same.  * 

Such  are  the  wishes  that  they  utter. 


DISCOURSES  175 

For  universally,  be  not  deceived,  every  animal  is  attached 
to  nothing  so  much  as  to  its  own  interest.*  Whatever  then 
appears  to  it  an  impediment  to  this  interest,  whether  this 
be  a  brother,  or  a  father,  or  a  child,  or  beloved,  or  lover,  it 
hates,  spurns,  curses:  for  its  nature  is  to  love  nothing  so 
much  as  its  own  interest;  this  is  father,  and  brother,  and 
kinsman,  and  country,  and  God.  When  then  the  gods  ap- 
pear to  us  to  be  an  impediment  to  this,  we  abuse  them  and 
throw  down  their  statues  and  burn  their  temples,  as  Alex- 
ander ordered  the  temples  of  ^sculapius  to  be  burned  when 
his  dear  friend  died.^ 

For  this  reason  if  a  man  put  in  the  same  place  his  in- 
terest, sanctity,  goodness,  and  country,  and  parents,  and 
friends,  all  these  are  secured :  but  if  he  puts  in  one  place  his 
interest,  in  another  his  friends,  and  his  country  and  his  kins- 
men and  justice  itself,  all  these  give  way  being  borne  down 
by  the  weight  of  interest.  For  where  the  I  and  the  Mine 
are  placed,  to  that  place  of  necessity  the  animal  inclines :  if 
in  the  flesh,  there  is  the  ruling  power :  if  in  the  will,  it  is  there: 
and  if  it  is  in  externals,  it  is  there.®  If  then  I  am  there 
where  my  will  is,  then  only  shall  I  be  a  friend  such  as  I 
ought  to  be,  and  son,  and  father ;  for  this  will  be  my  interest, 
to  maintain  the  character  of  fidelity,  of  modesty,  of  patience, 
of  abstinence,  of  active  co-operation,  of  observing  my  rela- 
tions (towards  all).  But  if  I  put  myself  in  one  place,  and 
honesty  in  another,  then  the  doctrine  of  Epicurus  becomes 
strong,  which  asserts  either  that  there  is  no  honesty  or  it  is 
that  which  opinion  holds  to  be  honest  (virtuous). 

It  was  through  this  ignorance  that  the  Athenians  and 
the  Lacedaemonians  quarrelled,  and  the  Thebans  with  both; 
and  the  great  king  quarrelled  with  Hellas,  and  the  Mace- 
donians with  both ;  and  the  Romans  with  the  Getae.'^  And 
still  earlier  the  Trojan  war  happened  for  these  reasons.  Al- 
exander was  the  giiest  of  Menelaus;  and  if  any  man  had 
seen  their  friendly  disposition,  he  would  not  have  believed 
any  one  who  said  that  they  were  not  friends.  But  there  was 
cast  between  them  (as  between  dogs)  a  bit  of  meat,  a  hand- 
some woman,  and  about  her  war  arose.  And  now  when  you 
see  brothers  to  be  friends  appearing  to  have  one  mind,  do 
not  conclude  from  this  any  thing  about  their  friendship,  not 


1^6  EPICTETUS 

even  if  they  swear  it  and  say  that  it  is  impossible  for  them  to 
be  separated  from  one  another.  For  the  ruhng  principle 
of  a  bad  man  can  not  be  trusted,  it  is  insecure,  has  no  certain 
rule  by  which  it  is  directed,  and  is  overpowered  at  different 
times  by  different  appearances.  But  examine,  not  what 
other  men  examine,  if  they  are  born  of  the  same  parents  and 
brought  up  together,  and  under  the  same  pedagogue;  but 
examine  this  only,  wherein  they  place  their  interest,  whether 
in  externals  or  in  the  will.  If  in  externals,  do  not  name 
them  friends,  no  more  than  name  them  trustworthy  or  con- 
stant, or  brave  or  free :  do  not  name  them  even  men,  if  you 
have  any  judgment.  For  that  is  not  a  principle  of  human 
nature  which  makes  them  bite  one  another,  and  abuse  one 
another,  and  occupy  deserted  places  or  public  places,  as  if 
they  were  mountains,*  and  in  the  courts  of  justice  display 
the  acts  of  robbers;  nor  yet  that  which  makes  them  intem- 
perate and  adulterers  and  corrupters,  nor  that  which  makes 
them  do  whatever  else  men  do  against  one  another  through 
this  one  opinion  only,  that  of  placing  themselves  and  their 
interests  in  the  things  which  are  not  within  the  power  of 
their  will.  But  if  you  hear  that  in  truth  these  men  think 
the  good  to  be  only  there,  where  will  is,  and  where  there  is 
a  right  use  of  appearances,  no  longer  trouble  yourself 
whether  they  are  father  or  son,  or  brothers,  or  have  associ- 
ated a  long  time  and  are  companions,  but  when  you  have 
ascertained  this  only,  confidently  declare  that  they  are 
friends,  as  you  declare  that  they  are  faithful,  that  they  are 
just.  For  where  else  is  friendship  than  where  there  is  fidel- 
ity, and  modesty,  where  there  is  a  communion  of  honest 
things  and  of  nothing  else? 

But  you  may  say,  such  a  one  treated  me  with  regard  so 
long;  and  did  he  not  love  me?  How  do  you  know,  slave, 
if  he  did  not  regard  you  in  the  same  way  as  he  wipes  his 
shoes  with  a  sponge,  or  as  he  takes  care  of  his  beast  ?  How 
do  you  know,  when  you  have  ceased  to  be  useful  as  a  vessel, 
he  will  not  throw  you  away  like  a  broken  platter  ?  But  this 
woman  is  my  wife,  and  we  have  lived  together  so  long. 
And  how  long  did  Eriphyle  live  with  Amphiaraus,  and  was 
the  mother  of  children  and  of  many?  But  a  necklace®  came 
between  them:  and  what  is  a  nedclace?     It  is  the  opinion 


DISCOURSES  177 

about  such  things.  That  was  the  bestial  principle,  that  was 
the  thing  which  broke  asunder  the  friendship  between  hus- 
band and  wife,  that  which  did  not  allow  the  woman  to  be  a 
wife,  nor  the  mother  to  be  a  mother.  And  let  every  man 
among  you  who  has  seriously  resolved  either  to  be  a  friend 
himself  or  have  another  for  his  friend,  cut  out  these  opinions, 
hate  them,  drive  them  from  his  soul.  And  thus  first  of  all 
he  will  not  reproach  himself,  he  will  not  be  at  variance  with 
himself,  he  will  not  change  his  mind,  he  will  not  torture 
himself.  In  the  next  place,  to  another  also,  who  is  like  him- 
self, he  will  be  altogether  and  completely  a  friend.  But  he 
will  bear  with  the  man  who  is  unlike  himself,  he  will  be  kind 
to  him,  gentle,  ready  to  pardon  on  account  of  his  ignorance, 
on  account  of  his  being  mistaken  in  things  of  the  greatest 
importance ;  but  he  will  be  harsh  to  no  man,  being  well  con- 
vinced of  Plato's  doctrine  that  every  mind  is  deprived  of 
truth  unwillingly.  If  you  can  not  do  this,  yet  you  can  do  in 
all  other  respects  as  friends  do,  drink  together,  and  lodge 
together,  and  sail  together,  and  you  may  be  bom  of  the  same 
parents ;  for  snakes  also  are :  but  neither  will  they  be  friends 
nor  you,  so  long  as  you  retain  these  bestial  and  cursed  opin- 
ions. 

NOTES 

*■ "  In  this  dissertation  is  expounded  the  Stoic  principle  that  friendship 
is  only  possible  between  the  good."  Schweig.  He  also  says  that  there 
was  another  discourse  by  Epictetus  on  this  subject,  in  which  he  ex- 
pressed some  of  the  opinions  of  Musonius  Rufus  (i.  i,  note  12). 
Schweig.  draws  this  conclusion  from  certain  words  of  Stobaeus ;  and  he 
supposes  that  this  dissertation  of  Epictetus  was  in  one  of  the  last  four 
books  of  Epictetus'  discourses  by  Arrian,  which  have  been  lost. 

Cicero  (de  Amicit.  c.  5)  says  "nisi  in  bonis  amicitiam  esse  non  posse," 
and  c.  i8. 

'  The  first  verse  is  from  the  "Alcestis"  of  Euripides,  v.  691.  The 
second  in  Epictetus  is  not  in  Euripides. 

•From  the  "Phcenissae"  of  Euripides,  v.  723,  etc. 

•Compare  Euripides,  "Hecuba,"  v.  846,  etc: 

Setvov  ys  BvTfroii  dbg  ditavra  dv^nirvet: 
Kal  Tcci  a.vdyKa<;  005  vofiot  dtcbptdavy 
(piXovi  TiOevTSi  Tovi  ys  TCoXs/ntoordrovi 
Ijfipovi  re  Tovi  icpiv  evfieveii  itoioviitvoi. 

*  Alexander  did  this  when  Hephaestion  died.  Arrian,  Expedition  of 
Alexander,  vii.  14. 

'  Matthew  vi.  21,  "for  where  your  treasure  is,  there  will  your  heart  be 
also." 


178 


EPICTETUS 


*  The  quarrels  of  the  Athenians  with  the  Lacedaemonians  appear  chiefly 
in  the  history  of  the  Peloponnesian  war.  (Thucydides,  i.  i.)  The  quar- 
rel of  the  great  king,  the  king  of  Persia,  is  the  subject  of  the  history  of 
Herodotus  (i.  i).  The  great  quarrel  of  the  Macedonians  with  the  Per- 
sians is  the  subject  of  Arrian's  expedition  of  Alexander.  The  Romans 
were  at  war  with  the  Getae  or  Daci  in  the  time  of  Trajan,  and  we  may 
assume  that  Epictetus  was  still  living  then. 

*  Schweig.  thinks  that  this  is  the  plain  meaning :  "as  wild  beasts  in  the 
mountains  lie  in  wait  for  men,  so  men  lie  in  wait  for  men,  not  only  in 
deserted  places,  but  even  in  the  forum." 

*  The  old  story  about  Eriphyle  who  betrayed  her  husband  for  a  neck- 
lace. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

ON  THE  POWER  OF  SPEAKING 

EVERY  man  will  read  a  book  with  more  pleasure  or 
even  with  more  ease,  if  it  is  written  in  fairer  char- 
acters. Therefore,  every  man  will  also  listen  more 
readily  to  what  is  spoken,  if  it  is  signified  by  appro- 
priate and  becoming  words.  We  must  not  say  then  that 
there  is  no  faculty  of  expression :  for  this  affirmation  is  the 
characteristic  of  an  impious  and  also  of  a  timid  man.  Of 
an  impious  man,  because  he  undervalues  the  gifts  which 
come  from  God,  just  as  if  he  would  take  away  the  commod- 
ity of  the  power  of  vision,  or  of  hearing,  or  of  seeing. 
Has  then  God  given  you  eyes  to  no  purpose  ?  and  to  no  pur- 
pose has  he  infused  into  them  a  spirit^  so  strong  and  of  such 
skilful  contrivance  as  to  reach  a  long  way  and  to  fashion  the 
forms  of  things  which  are  seen?  What  messenger  is  so 
swift  and  vigilant?  And  to  no  purpose  has  he  made  the 
interjacent  atmosphere  so  efficacious  and  elastic  that  the 
vision  penetrates  through  the  atmosphere  which  is  in  a  man- 
ner moved?  And  to  no  purpose  has  he  made  light,  without 
the  presence  of  which  there  would  be  no  use  in  any  other 
thing  ? 

Man,  be  neither  ungrateful  for  these  gifts  nor  yet  forget 
the  things  which  are  superior  to  them.  But  indeed  for  the 
power  of  seeing  and  hearing,  and  indeed  for  life  itself,  and 
for  the  things  which  contribute  to  support  it,  for  the  fruits 
which  are  dry,  and  for  wine  and  oil  give  thanks  to  God :  but 
remember  that  he  has  given  you  something  else  better  than 
all  these,  I  mean  the  power  of  using  them,  proving  them  and 
estimating  the  value  of  each.  For  what  is  that  which  gives 
information  about  each  of  these  powers,  what  each  of  them 
is  worth  ?  Is  it  each  faculty  itself  ?  Did  you  ever  hear  the 
faculty  of  vision  saying  any  thing  about  itself  ?  or  the  faculty 
of  hearing  ?  or  wheat,  or  barley,  or  a  horse,  or  a  dog  ?  No ; 
but  they  are  appointed  as  ministers  and  slaves  to  serve  the 
faculty  which  has  the  power  of  making  use  of  the  appear- 

179 


l8o  EPICTETUS 

ances  of  things.  And  if  you  inquire  what  is  the  value  of 
each  thing,  of  whom  do  you  inquire?  who  answers  you? 
How  then  can  any  other  faculty  be  more  powerful  than  this, 
which  uses  the  rest  as  ministers  and  itself  proves  each  and 
pronounces  about  them  ?  for  which  of  them  knows  what  itself 
is,  and  what  is  its  own  value?  which  of  them  knows  when 
it  ought  to  employ  itself  and  when  not?  what  faculty  is  it 
which  opens  and  closes  the  eyes,  and  turns  them  away  from 
objects  to  which  it  ought  not  to  apply  them  and  does  apply 
them  to  other  objects?  Is  it  the  faculty  of  vision?  No; 
but  it  is  the  faculty  of  the  will.  What  is  that  faculty 
which  closes  and  opens  the  ears?  what  is  that  by  which 
they  are  curious  and  inquisitive,  or  on  the  contrary  unmoved 
by  what  is  said  ?  is  it  the  faculty  of  hearing  ?  It  is  no  other 
than  the  faculty  of  the  will.  Will  this  faculty  then,  seeing 
that  it  is  amidst  all  the  other  faculties  which  are  blind  and 
dumb  and  unable  to  see  any  thing  else  except  the  very  acts 
for  which  they  are  appointed  in  order  to  minister  to  this 
(faculty)  and  serve  it,  but  this  faculty  alone  sees  sharp  and 
sees  what  is  the  value  of  each  of  the  rest;  will  this  faculty 
declare  to  us  that  any  thing  else  is  the  best,- or  that  itself  is? 
And  what  else  does  the  eye  do  when  it  is  opened  than  see? 
But  whether  we  ought  to  look  on  the  wife  of  a  certain  per- 
son, and  in  what  manner,  who  tells  us  ?  The  faculty  of  the 
will.  And  whether  we  ought  to  believe  what  is  said  or  not 
to  believe  it,  and  if  we  do  believe,  whether  we  ought  to  be 
moved  by  it  or  not,  who  tells  us?  Is  it  not  the  faculty  of 
the  will  ?  But  this  faculty  of  speaking  and  of  ornamenting 
words,  if  there  is  indeed  any  such  peculiar  faculty,  what  else 
does  it  do,  when  there  happens  to  be  discourse  about  a  thing, 
than  to  ornament  the  words  and  arrange  them  as  hair-dress- 
ers do  the  hair  ?  But  whether  it  is  better  to  speak  or  to  be 
silent,  and  better  to  speak  in  this  way  or  that  way,  and 
whether  this  is  becoming  or  not  becoming,  and  the  season 
for  each  and  the  use,  what  else  tells  us  than  the  faculty  of 
the  will?  Would  you  have  it  then  to  come  forward  and 
condemn  itself? 

What  then?  it  (the  will)  says,^  if  the  fact  is  so,  can  that 
which  ministers  be  superior  to  that  to  which  it  ministers,  can 
the  horse  be  superior  to  the  rider,  or  the  dog  to  the  hunts- 


DISCOURSES  l8l 

man,  or  the  instrument  to  the  musician,  or  the  servants  to 
the  king  ?  What  is  that  which  makes  use  of  the  rest  ?  The 
will.  What  takes  care  of  all?  The  will.  What  destroys 
the  whole  man,  at  one  time  by  hunger,  at  another  time  by 
hanging,  and  at  another  time  by  a  precipice?  The  will. 
Then  is  any  thing  stronger  in  men  than  this?  and  how  is  it 
possible  that  the  things  which  are  subject  to  restraint  are 
stronger  than  that  which  is  not  ?  What  things  are  naturally 
formed  to  hinder  the  faculty  of  vision?  Both  will  and 
things  which  do  not  depend  on  the  faculty  of  the  will.  It 
is  the  same  with  the  faculty  of  hearing,  with  the  faculty  of 
speaking  in  like  manner.  But  what  has  a  natural  power  of 
hindering  the  will?  Nothing  which  is  independent  of  the 
will;  but  only  the  will  itself,  when  it  is  perverted.  There- 
fore this  (the  will)  is  alone  vice  or  alone  virtue. 

Then  being  so  great  a  faculty  and  set  over  all  the  rest,  let 
it  (the  will)  come  forward  and  tell  us  that  the  most  excel- 
lent of  all  things  is  the  flesh.  Not  even  if  the  flesh  itself  de- 
clared that  it  is  the  most  excellent,  would  any  person  bear 
that  it  should  say  this.  But  what  is  it,  Epicurus,  which  pro- 
nounces this,  which  wrote  about  the  End  (purpose)  of  our 
Being,'  which  wrote  on  the  Nature  of  Things,  which  wrote 
about  the  Canon  (rule  of  truth),  which  led  you  to  wear  a 
beard,  which  wrote  when  it  was  dying  that  it  was  spending 
the  last  and  a  happy  day  ?*  Was  this  the  flesh  or  the  will  ? 
Then  do  you  admit  that  you  possess  any  thing  superior  to 
this  (the  will)  ?  and  are  you  not  mad?  are  you  in  fact  so 
blind  and  deaf  ? 

What  then  ?  does  any  man  despise  the  other  faculties  ?  I 
hope  not.  Does  any  man  say  that  there  is  no  use  or  excel- 
lence in  the  speaking  faculty  ?  I  hope  not.  That  would  be 
foolish,  impious,  ungrateful  towards  God.  But  a  man  ren- 
ders to  each  thing  its  due  value.  For  there  is  some  use  even 
in  an  ass,  but  not  so  much  as  in  an  ox :  there  is  also  use  in 
a  dog,  but  not  so  much  as  in  a  slave :  there  is  also  some  use 
in  a  slave,  but  not  so  much  as  in  citizens :  there  is  also  some 
use  in  citizens,  but  not  so  much  as  in  magistrates.  Not  in- 
deed because  some  things  are  superior,  must  we  undervalue 
the  use  which  other  things  have.  There  is  a  certain  value  in 
the  power  of  speaking,  but  it  is  not  so  great  as  the  power 


1 82  EPICTETUS 

of  the  will.  When  then  I  speak  thus,  let  no  man  think  that 
I  ask  you  to  neglect  the  power  of  speaking,  for  neither  do 
I  ask  you  to  neglect  the  eyes,  nor  the  ears  nor  the  hands  nor 
the  feet,  nor  clothing  nor  shoes.  But  if  you  ask  me  what 
then  is  the  most  excellent  of  all  things,  what  must  I  say?  I 
can  not  say  the  power  of  speaking,  but  the  power  of  the  will, 
when  it  is  right  (o/ofl?)).  For  it  is  this  which  uses  the  other 
(the  power  of  speaking),  and  all  the  other  faculties  both 
small  and  great.  For  when  this  faculty  of  the  will  is  set 
right,  a  man  who  is  not  good  becomes  good:  but  when  it 
fails,  a  man  becomes  bad.  It  is  through  this  that  we  are 
unfortunate,  that  we  are  fortunate,  that  we  blame  one  an- 
other, are  pleased  with  one  another.  In  a  word,  it  is  this 
which  if  we  neglect  it  makes  unhappiness,  and  if  we  care- 
fully look  after  it,  makes  happiness. 

But  to  take  away  the  faculty  of  speaking  and  to  say  that 
there  is  no  such  faculty  in  reality,  is  the  act  not  only  of  an 
ungrateful  man  towards  those  who  gave  it,  but  also  of  a 
cowardly  man:  for  such  a  person  seems  to  me  to  fear,  if 
there  is  any  faculty  of  this  kind,  that  we  shall  not  be  able 
to  Hespise  it.  Such  also  are  those  who  say  that  there  is  no 
difference  between  beauty  and  ugliness.  Then  it  would  hap- 
pen that  a  man  would  be  afifected  in  the  same  way  if  he  saw 
Thersites  and  if  he  saw  Achilles :  in  the  same  way,  if  he  saw 
Helen  and  any  other  woman.  But  these  are  foolish  and 
clownish  notions,  and  the  notions  of  men  who  know  not  the 
nature  of  each  thing,  but  are  afraid,  if  a  man  shall  see  the 
difference,  that  he  shall  immediately  be  seized  and  carried 
off  vanquished.  But  this  is  the  great  matter;  to  leave  to 
each  thing  the  power  (faculty)  which  it  has,  and  leaving  to 
it  this  power  to  see  what  is  the  worth  of  the  power,  and  to 
learn  what  is  the  most  excellent  of  all  things,  and  to  pursue 
this  always,  to  be  diligent  about  this,  considering  all  other 
things  of  secondary  value  compared  with  this,  but  yet,  as 
far  as  we  can,  not  neglecting  all  those  other  things.  For  we 
must  take  care  of  the  eyes  also,  not  as  if  they  were  the  most 
excellent  thing,  but  we  must  take  care  of  them  on  account  of 
the  most  excellent  thing,  because  it  will  not  be  in  its  true 
natural  condition,  if  it  does  not  rightly  use  the  other  facul- 
ties, and  prefer  some  things  to  others. 


DISCOURSES  183 

What  then  is  usually  done  ?  Men  generally  act  as  a  trav- 
eller would  do  on  his  way  to  his  own  country,  when  he  enters 
a  good  inn,  and  being  pleased  with  it  should  remain  there. 
Man,  you  have  forgotten  your  purpose :  you  were  not  travel- 
ling to  this  inn,  but  you  were  passing  through  it. — But  this 
is  a  pleasant  inn. — And  how  many  other  inns  are  pleasant  ? 
and  how  many  meadows  are  pleasant?  yet  only  for  passing 
through.  But  your  purpose  is  this,  to  return  to  your  coun- 
try, to  relieve  your  kinsmen  of  anxiety,  to  discharge  the 
duties  of  a  citizen,  to  marry,  to  beget  children,  to  fill  the 
usual  magistracies.^  For  you  are  not  come  to  select  more 
pleasant  places,  but  to  live  in  these  where  you  were  born  and 
of  which  you  were  made  a  citizen.  Something  of  the  kind 
takes  place  in  the  matter  which  we  are  considering.  Since 
by  the  aid  of  speech  and  such  communication  as  you  receive 
here  you  must  advance  to  perfection,  and  purge  your  will  and 
correct  the  faculty  which  makes  use  of  the  appearances  of 
things;  and  since  it  is  necessary  also  for  the  teaching  (de- 
livery) of  theorems  to  be  effected  by  a  certain  mode  of  ex- 
pression and  with  a  certain  variety  and  sharpness,  some  per- 
sons captivated  by  these  very  things  abide  in  them,  one  cap- 
tivated by  the  expression,  another  by  syllogisms,  another 
again  by  sophisms,  and  still  another  by  some  other  inn 
{itavSoKEiov)  of  this  kind;  and  there  they  stay  and  waste 
away  as  if  they  were  among  Sirens. 

Man,  your  purpose  (business)  was  to  make  yourself  ca- 
pable of  using  conformably  to  nature  the  appearances  pre- 
sented to  you,  in  your  desires  not  to  be  frustrated,  in  your 
aversion  from  things  not  to  fall  into  that  which  you  would 
avoid,  never  to  have  no  luck  (as  one  may  say),  nor  ever  to 
have  bad  luck,  to  be  free,  not  hindered,  not  compelled,  con- 
forming yourself  to  the  administration  of  Zeus,  obeying  it, 
well  satisfied  with  this,  blaming  no  one,  charging  no  one 
with  fault,  able  from  your  whole  soul  to  utter  these  verses 

"Lead  me,  O  Zeus,  and  thou  too  Destiny." 

Then  having  this  purpose  before  you,  if  some  little  form  of 
expression  pleases  you,  if  some  theorems  please  you,  do  you 
abide  among  them  and  choose  to  dwell  there,  forgetting  the 


184  EPICTETUS 

things  at  home,  and  do  you  say,  These  things  are  fine? 
Who  says  that  they  are  not  fine?  but  only  as  being  a  way 
home,  as  inns  are.  For  what  hinders  you  from  being  an 
unfortunate  man,  even  if  you  speak  Hke  Demosthenes  ?  and 
what  prevents  you,  if  you  can  resolve  syllogisms  like  Chry- 
sippus,^  from  being  wretched,  from  sorrowing,  from  envy- 
ing, in  a  word,  from  being  disturbed,  from  being  unhappy? 
Nothing.  You  see  then  that  these  were  inns,  worth  noth- 
ing; and  that  the  purpose  before  you  was  something  else. 
When  I  speak  thus  to  some  persons,  they  think  that  I  am  re- 
jecting care  about  speaking  or  care  about  theorems.  But 
I  am  not  rejecting  this  care,  but  I  am  rejecting  the  abiding 
about  these  things  incessantly  and  putting  our  hopes  in  them. 
If  a  man  by  this  teaching  does  harm  to  those  who  listen  to 
him,  reckon  me  too  among  those  who  do  this  harm :  for  I 
am  not  able,  when  I  see  one  thing  which  is  most  excellent 
and  supreme,  to  say  that  another  is  so,  in  order  to  please  you. 

MOTES 

*  The  word  for  "spirit"  is  TtvEvjua,  a  vital  spirit,  an  animal  spirit, 
a  nervous  fluid,  as  Schweighauser  explains  it,  or  as  Plutarch  says 
(De  Placit.  Philosoph.  iv.  15),  "the  spirit  which  has  the  power  of  vision, 
which  permeates  from  the  chief  faculty  of  the  mind  to  the  pupil  of  the 
eye;"  and  in  another  passage  of  the  same  treatise  (iv.  8),  "the  instru- 
ments of  perception  said  to  be  intelligent  spirits  (Ttvevjuara  voepd) 
have  a  motion  from  the  chief  faculty  of  the  mind  to  the  organs." 

'  On  the  Greek  text  Upton  remarks  that,  "there  are  many  passages  in 
these  dissertations  which  are  ambiguous  or  rather  confused  on  account 
of  the  small  questions,  and  because  the  matter  is  not  expanded  by 
oratorical  copiousness,  not  to  mention  other  causes." 

*  This  appears  to  be  the  book  which  Cicero  (Tuscul.  iii.  18)  entitles 
on  the  "supreme  good"  (de  summo  bono),  which,  as  Cicero  says,  con- 
tains all  the  doctrine  of  Epicurus.  The  book  on  the  Canon  or  Rule  is 
mentioned  by  Velleius  in  Cicero  de  Nat.  Decorum  i.  c.  16,  as  "that  celes- 
tial volume  of  Epicurus  on  the  Rule  and  Judgment."  See  also  De  Fin. 
i.  19. 

*  This  is  said  in  a  letter  written  by  Epicurus,  when  he  was  dying  in 
great  pain  (Diog.  Laert.  x.  22)  ;  Cicero  (De  Fin.  ii.  c.  30)  quotes  this 
letter. 

"  The  Stoics  taught  that  a  man  should  lead  an  active  life.  Horace 
(Ep.  i.  I,  16)  represents  himself  as  sometimes  following  the  Stoic  prin- 
ciples : 

"Nunc  agilis  fio  et  mersor  civilibus  undis." 

but  this  was  only  talk.  The  Stoic  should  discharge  all  the  duties  of 
a  citizen,  says  Epictetus ;  he  should  even  marry  and  beget  children. 
But  the  marrying  may  be  done  without  any  sense  of  duty ;  and  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  human  race  is  secured  by  the  natural  love  of  the  male 


DISCOURSES  185 

and  of  the  female  for  conjunction.  Still  it  is  good  advice,  which  the 
Roman  censor  Metellus  gave  to  his  fellow  citizens,  that,  as  they  could 
not  live  without  women,  they  should  make  the  best  of  this  business  of 
marriage.     (Gellius,  i.  6.) 

•  Chrysippus  wrote  a  book  on  the  resolution  of  Syllogisms.  Diogenes 
Laertius  (vii.)  says  of  Chrysippus  that  he  was  so  famous  among  Dialec- 
ticians that  most  persons  thought,  if  there  was  Dialectic  among  the 
Gods,  it  would  not  be  any  other  than  that  of  Chrysippus. 


i">Si 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
TO  (or  against)  a  person  who  was  one  of  those  who 

WERE  not  valued   ( ESTEEMED)    BY  HIM 

A  CERTAIN  person  said  to  him  (Epictetus)  :  Fre- 
quently I  desired  to  hear  you  and  came  to  you,  and 
you  never  gave  me  any  answer:  and  now,  if  it  is 
possible,  I  intreat  you  to  say  something  to  me.  Do 
you  think,  said  Epictetus,  that  as  there  is  an  art  in  any  thing 
else,  so  there  is  also  an  art  in  speaking,  and  that  he  who  has 
the  art,  will  speak  skilfully,  and  he  who  has  not,  will  speak 
unskilfully? — I  do  think  so. — He  then  who  by  speaking 
receives  benefit  himself,  and  is  able  to  benefit  others,  will 
speak  skilfully:  but  he  who  is  rather  damaged  by  speaking 
and  does  damage  to  others,  will  he  be  unskilled  in  this  art  of 
speaking?  And  you  may  find  that  some  are  damaged  and 
others  benefited  by  speaking.  And  are  all  who  hear  bene- 
fited by  what  they  hear  ?  Or  will  you  find  that  among  them 
also  some  are  benefited  and  some  damaged  ? — There  are  both 
among  these  also,  he  said. — In  this  case  also  then  those  who 
hear  skilfully  are  benefited,  and  those  who  hear  unskilfully 
are  damaged?  He  admitted  this.  Is  there  then  a  skill  in 
hearing  also,  as  there  is  in  speaking? — It  seems  so. — If  you 
choose,  consider  the  matter  in  this  way  also.  The  practice 
of  music,  to  whom  does  it  belong?  To  a  musician.  And 
the  proper  making  of  a  statue,  to  whom  do  you  think  that  it 
belongs  ?  To  a  statuary.  And  the  looking  at  a  statue  skil- 
fully, does  this  appear  to  you  to  require  the  aid  of  no  art  ? — 
This  also  requires  the  aid  of  art. — Then  if  speaking  properly 
is  the  business  of  the  skilful  man,  do  you  see  that  to  hear 
also  with  benefit  is  the  business  of  the  skilful  man  ?  Now  as 
to  speaking  and  hearing  perfectly,  and  usefully,^  let  us  for 
the  present,  if  you  please,  say  no  more,  for  both  of  us  are  a 
long  way  from  every  thing  of  the  kind.  But  I  think  that 
every  man  will  allow  this,  that  he  who  is  going  to  hear  phi- 
losophers requires  some  amount  of  practice  in  hearing.  Is 
it  not  so  ? 

i86 


DISCOURSES  187 

Tell  me  then  about  what  I  should  talk  to  you :  about  what 
matter  are  you  able  to  listen  ? — About  good  and  evil. — Good 
and  evil  in  what  ?  In  a  horse  ?  No.  Well,  in  an  ox  ?  No. 
What  then  ?  In  a  man  ?  Yes.  Do  we  know  then  what  a 
man  is,  what  the  notion  is  which  we  have  of  him,  or  have 
we  our  ears  in  any  degree  practised  about  this  matter  ?  But 
do  you  understand  what  nature  is?  or  can  you  even  in  any 
degree  understand  me  when  I  say,  I  shall  use  demonstra- 
tion to  you?  How?  Do  you  understand  this  very  thing, 
what  demonstration  is,  or  how  any  thing  is  demonstrated, 
or  by  what  means;  or  what  things  are  like  demonstration, 
but  are  not  demonstration  ?  Do  you  know  what  is  true  or 
what  is  false?  What  is  consequent  on  a  thing,  what  is  re- 
pugnant to  a  thing,  or  not  consistent,  or  inconsistent  ?  But 
must  I  excite  you  to  philosophy,  and  how  ?  Shall  I  show  to 
you  the  repugnance  in  the  opinions  of  most  men,  through 
which  they  differ  about  things  good  and  evil,  and  about 
things  which  are  profitable  and  unprofitable,  when  you  know 
not  this  very  thing,  what  repugnance  (contradiction)  is? 
Show  me  then  what  I  shall  accomplish  by  discoursing  with 
you :  excite  my  inclination  to  do  this.  As  the  grass  which 
is  suitable,  when  it  is  presented  to  a  sheep,  moves  its  inclina- 
tion to  eat,  but  if  you  present  to  it  a  stone  or  bread,  it  will 
not  be  moved  to  eat ;  so  there  are  in  us  certain  natural  incli- 
nations also  to  speak,  when  the  hearer  shall  appear  to  be 
somebody,  when  he  himself  shall  excite  us :  but  when  he 
shall  sit  by  us  like  a  stone  or  like  grass,  how  can  he  excite 
a  man's  desire  (to  speak)  ?  Does  the  vine  say  to  the  hus- 
bandman, "Take  care  of  me?"  No,  but  the  vine  by  showing 
in  itself  that  it  will  be  profitable  to  the  husbandman,  if  he 
does  take  care  of  it,  invites  him  to  exercise  care.  When 
children  are  attractive  and  lively,  whom  do  they  not  invite 
to  play  with  them,  and  crawl  with  them,  and  lisp  with  them? 
But  who  is  eager  to  play  with  an  ass  or  to  bray  with  it?  for 
though  it  is  small,  it  is  still  a  little  ass. 

Why  then  do  you  say  nothing  to  me  ?  I  can  only  say  this 
to  you,  that  he  who  knows  not  who  he  is,  and  for  what  pur- 
pose he  exists,  and  what  is  this  world,  and  with  whom  he  is 
associated,  and  what  things  are  the  good  and  the  bad,  and 
the  beautiful  and  the  ugly,  and  who  neither  understands  dis- 


1 88  EPICTETUS 

course  nor  demonstration,  nor  what  is  true  nor  what  is  false, 
and  who  is  not  able  to  distinguish  them,  will  neither  desire 
according  to  nature  nor  turn  away  nor  move  towards,  nor  in- 
tend (to  act),  nor  assent,  nor  dissent  nor  suspend  his  judg- 
ment :  to  say  all  in  a  few  words,  he  will  go  about  dumb  and 
blind,  thinking  that  he  is  somebody,  but  being  nobody.  Is 
this  so  now  for  the  first  time?  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  ever 
since  the  human  race  existed,  all  errors  and  misfortunes  have 
arisen  through  this  ignorance?  Why  did  Agamemnon  and 
Achilles  quarrel  with  one  another  ?  Was  it  not  through  not 
knowing  what  things  are  profitable  and  not  profitable  ?  Does 
not  the  one  say  it  is  profitable  to  restore  Chryseis  to  her 
father,  and  does  not  the  other  say  that  it  is  not  profitable? 
does  not  the  one  say  that  he  ought  to  take  the  prize  of  an- 
other, and  does  not  the  other  say  that  he  ought  not?  Did 
they  not  for  these  reasons  forget,  both  who  they  were  and 
for  what  purpose  they  had  come  there  ?  Oh,  man,  for  what 
purpose  did  you  come?  to  gain  mistresses  or  to  fight?  To 
fight.  With  whom?  the  Trojans  or  the  Hellenes?  With  the 
Trojans.  Do  you  then  leave  Hector  alone  and  draw  your 
sword  against  your  own  king?  And  do  you,  most  excel- 
lent Sir,  neglect  the  duties  of  the  king,  you  who  are  the 
people's  guardian  and  have  such  cares;  and  are  you  quar- 
relling about  a  little  girl  with  the  most  warlike  of  your  allies, 
whom  you  ought  by  every  means  to  take  care  of  and  pro- 
tect? and  do  you  become  worse  than  (inferior  to)  a  well  be- 
haved priest  who  treats  you  these  fine  gladiators  with  all 
respect  ?  Do  you  see  what  kind  of  things  ignorance  of  what 
is  profitable  does? 

But  I  also  am  rich.  Are  you  then  richer  than  Agamem- 
non ?  But  I  am  also  handsome.  Are  you  then  more  hand- 
some than  Achilles?  But  I  have  also  beautiful  hair.  But 
had  not  Achilles  more  beautiful  hair  and  gold  coloured  ?  and 
he  did  not  comb  it  elegantly  nor  dress  it.  But  I  am  also 
strong.  Can  you  then  lift  so  great  a  stone  as  Hector  or 
Ajax?  But  I  am  also  of  noble  birth.  Are  you  the  son  of 
a  goddess  mother?  are  you  the  son  of  a  father  sprung  from 
Zeus?  What  good  then  do  these  things  do  to  him,  when 
he  sits  and  weeps  for  a  girl?  But  I  am  an  orator.  And 
was  he  not  ?     Do  you  not  see  how  he  handled  the  most  skil- 


DISCOURSES  189 

f ul  of  the  Hellenes  in  oratory,  Odysseus  and  Phoenix  ?  how 
he  stopped  their  mouths  ?^ 

This  is  all  that  I  have  to  say  to  you ;  and  I  say  even  this 
not  willingly.  Why?  Because  you  have  not  roused  me. 
For  what  must  I  look  to  in  order  to  be  roused,  as  men  who 
are  expert  in  riding  are  roused  by  generous  horses?  Must 
I  look  to  your  body?  You  treat  it  disgracefully.  To  your 
dress?  That  is  luxurious.  To  your  behaviour,  to  your 
look?  That  is  the  same  as  nothing.  When  you  would 
listen  to  a  philosopher,  do  not  say  to  him,  "You  tell  me  noth- 
ing;" but  only  show  yourself  worthy  of  hearing  or  fit  for 
hearing;  and  you  will  see  how  you  will  move  the  speaker. 


'  "That  is,  let  us  not  now  consider  whether  I  am  perfect  in  the  art 
of  speaking,  and  you  have  a  mind  well  prepared  to  derive  real  advantage 
from  philosophical  talk.  Let  us  consider  this  only,  whether  your  ears 
are  sufficiently  prepared  for  listening,  whether  you  can  understand  a 
philosophical  discussion."     Schweig. 

*  In  the  ninth  book  of  the  Iliad,  where  Achilles  answers  the  messen- 
gers sent  to  him  by  Agamemnon.  The  reply  of  Achilles  is  a  wonderful 
example  of  eloquence. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THAT  LOGIC  IS  NECESSARY 

WHEN  one  of  those  who  were  present  said,  "Per- 
suade me  that  logic  is  necessary,"  he  repHed,  Do 
you  wish  me  to  prove  this  to  you  ? — The  answer 
was  "Yes" — Then  I  must  use  a  demonstrative 
form  of  speech. — This  was  granted. — How  then  will  you 
know  if  I  am  cheating  you  by  my  argument  ?  The  man  was 
silent.  Do  you  see,  said  Epictetus,  that  you  yourself  are  ad- 
mitting that  logic  is  necessary,  if  without  it  you  can  not 
know  so  much  as  this,  whether  logic  is  necessary  or  not  nec- 
essary ? 


190 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

WHAT  IS  THE  PROPERTY  OF  ERROR 

EVERY  error  comprehends  contradiction :  for  since  he 
who  errs  does  not  wish  to  err,  but  to  be  right,  it  is 
plain  that  he  does  not  do  what  he  wishes.  For  what 
does  the  thief  wish  to  do?  That  which  is  for  his 
own  interest.  If  then  the  theft  is  not  for  his  own  interest, 
he  does  not  do  that  which  he  wishes.  But  every  rational 
soul  is  by  nature  offended  at  contradiction,  and  so  long  as  it 
does  not  understand  this  contradiction,  it  is  not  hindered 
from  doing  contradictory  things:  but  when  it  does  under- 
stand the  contradiction,  it  must  of  necessity  avoid  the  con- 
tradiction and  avoid  it  as  much  as  a  man  must  dissent  from 
the  false  when  he  sees  that  a  thing  is  false;  but  so  long  as 
this  falsehood  does  not  appear  to  him,  he  assents  to  it  as  to 
truth. 

He  then  is  strong  in  argument  and  has  the  faculty  of 
exhorting  and  confuting,  who  is  able  to  show  to  each  man 
the  contradiction  through  which  he  errs  and  clearly  to  prove 
how  he  does  not  do  that  which  he  wishes  and  does  that  which 
he  does  not  wish.  For  if  any  one  shall  show  this,  a  man 
will  himself  withdraw  from  that  which  he  does;  but  so  long 
as  you  do  not  show  this,  do  not  be  surprised  if  a  man  per- 
sists in  his  practice;  for  having  the  appearance  of  doing 
right,  he  does  what  he  does.  For  this  reason  Socrates  also 
trusting  to  this  power  used  to  say,  "I  am  used  to  call  no  other 
witness  of  what  I  say,  but  I  am  always  satisfied  with  him 
with  whom  I  am  discussing  and  I  ask  him  to  give  his  opinion 
and  call  him  as  a  witness,  and  though  he  is  only  one,  he  is 
sufficient  in  the  place  of  all."  For  Socrates  knew  by  what  the 
rational  soul  is  moved,  just  like  a  pair  of  scales,  and  then  it 
must  incline,  whether  it  chooses  or  not.  Show  the  rational 
governing  faculty  a  contradiction,  and  it  will  withdraw  from 
it ;  but  if  you  do  not  show  it,  rather  blame  yourself  than  him 
who  is  not  persuaded. 


19X 


BOOK  III 

CHAPTER  I 

OF  FINERY  IN  DRESS 

A  CERTAIN  young  man,  a  rhetorician,  came  to  see 
Epictetus,  with  his  hair  dressed  more  carefully  than 
was  usual  and  his  attire  in  an  ornamental  style; 
whereiipon  Epictetus  said,  Tell  me  if  you  do  not 
think  that  some  dogs  are  beautiful  and  some  horses,  and  so  of 
all  other  animals.  "I  do  think  so,"  the  youth  replied.  Are 
not  then  some  men  also  beautiful  and  others  ugly?  "Cer- 
tainly." Do  we  then  for  the  same  reason  call  each  of  them  in 
the  same  kind  beautiful,  or  each  beautiful  for  something  pe- 
culiar? And  you  will  judge  of  this  matter  thus.  Since  we 
see  a  dog  naturally  formed  for  one  thing,  and  a  horse  for  an- 
other, and  for  another  still,  as  an  example,  a  nightingale, 
we  may  generally  and  not  improperly  declare  each  of  them  to 
be  beautiful  then  when  it  is  most  excellent  according  to  its 
nature ;  but  since  the  nature  of  each  is  different,  each  of  them 
seems  to  me  to  be  beautiful  in  a  different  way.  Is  it  not  so  ? 
He  admitted  that  it  was.  That  then  which  makes  a  dog 
beautiful,  makes  a  horse  ugly;  and  that  which  makes  a 
horse  beautiful,  makes  a  dog  ugly,  if  it  is  true  that  their  na- 
tures are  different.  "It  seems  to  be  so."  For  I  think  that 
what  makes  a  Pancratiast  beautiful,  makes  a  wrestler  to  be 
not  good,  and  a  runner  to  be  most  ridiculous;  and  he  who 
is  beautiful  for  the  Pentathlon,  is  very  ugly  for  wrestling.* 
It  is  so  said  he.  What  then  makes  a  man  beautiful  ?  Is  it 
that  which  in  its  kind  makes  both  a  dog  and  a  horse  beauti- 
ful? "It  is,"  he  said.  What  then  makes  a  dog  beautiful? 
The  possession  of  the  excellence  of  a  dog.  And  what  makes 
a  horse  beautiful?     The  possession  of  the  excellence  of  a 

192 


DISCOURSES  193 

horse.  What  then  makes  a  man  beautiful?  Is  it  not  the 
possession  of  the  excellence  of  a  man  ?  And  do  you  then,  if 
you  wish  to  be  beautiful,  young  man,  labour  at  this,  the  ac- 
quisition of  human  excellence.  But  what  is  this?  Observe 
whom  you  yourself  praise,  when  you  praise  many  persons 
without  partiality:  do  you  praise  the  just  or  the  unjust? 
"The  just."  Whether  do  you  praise  the  moderate  or  the 
immoderate?  "The  moderate."  And  the  temperate  or  the 
intemperate?  "The  temperate."  If  then  you  make  your- 
self such  a  person,  you  will  know  that  you  make  your- 
self beautiful :  but  so  long  as  you  neglect  these  things,  you 
must  be  ugly  ( aidxpov  ) ,  even  though  you  contrive  all  you 
can  to  appear  beautiful. 

Further  I  do  not  know  what  to  say  to  you:  for  if  I  say 
to  you  what  I  think,  I  shall  offend  you,  and  you  will  perhaps 
leave  the  school  and  not  return  to  it :  and  if  I  do  not  say 
what  I  think,  see  how  I  shall  be  acting,  if  you  come  to  me  to 
be  improved,  and  I  shall  not  improve  you  at  all,  and  if  you 
come  to  me  as  to  a  philosopher,  and  I  shall  say  nothing  to 
you  as  a  philosopher.  And  how  cruel  it  is  to  you  to  leave 
you  uncorrected.  If  at  any  time  afterwards  you  shall  ac- 
quire sense,  you  will  with  good  reason  blame  me  and  say, 
What  did  Epictetus  observe  in  me  that  when  he  saw  me  in 
such  a  plight  coming  to  him  in  such  a  scandalous  condition, 
he  neglected  me  and  never  said  a  word  ?  did  he  so  much  de- 
spair of  me?  was  I  not  young?  was  I  not  able  to  listen  to 
reason  ?  and  how  many  other  young  men  at  this  age  commit 
many  like  errors?  I  hear  that  a  certain  Polemon  from  be- 
ing a  most  dissolute  youth  underwent  such  a  great  change. 
Well,  suppose  that  he  did  not  think  that  I  should  be  a  Pole- 
mon;^ yet  he  might  have  set  my  hair  right,  he  might  have 
stripped  off  my  decorations,  he  might  have  stopped  me  from 
plucking  the  hair  out  of  my  body;  but  when  he  saw  me 
dressed  like — what  shall  I  say? — he  kept  silent.  I  do  not 
say  like  what;  but  you  will  say  when  you  come  to  your 
senses,  and  shall  know  what  it  is,  and  what  persons  use  such 
a  dress. 

If  you  bring  this  charge  against  me  hereafter,  what  de- 
fence shall  I  make  ?  Why,  shall  I  say  that  the  man  will 
not  be  persuaded  by  me  ?  Was  Laius  persuaded  by  Apollo  ? 
13 


194  EPICTETUS 

Did  he  not  go  away  and  get  drunk  and  show  no  care  for 
the  oracle  ?^  Well  then  for  this  reason  did  Apollo  refuse  to 
tell  him  the  truth  ?  I  indeed  do  not  know,  whether  you  will 
be  persuaded  by  me  or  not :  but  Apollo  knew  most  certainly 
that  Laius  would  not  be  persuaded  and  yet  he  spoke.  But 
why  did  he  speak?  I  say  in  reply,  But  why  is  he  Apollo, 
and  why  does  he  deliver  oracles,  and  why  has  he  fixed  him- 
self in  this  place  as  a  prophet  and  source  of  truth  and  for  the 
inhabitants  of  the  world  to  resort  to  him?  and  why  are  the 
words  "Know  yourself"  written  in  front  of  the  temple, 
though  no  person  takes  any  notice  of  them  ? 

Did  Socrates  persuade  all  his  hearers  to  take  care  of  them- 
selves? Not  the  thousandth  part.  But  however,  after  he 
had  been  placed  in  this  position  by  the  deity,  as  he  himself 
says,  he  never  left  it.  But  what  does  he  say  even  to  his 
judges?  ''If  you  acquit  me  on  these  conditions  that  I  no 
longer  do  that  which  I  do  now,  I  will  not  consent  and  I 
will  not  desist ;  but  I  will  go  up  both  to  young  and  old,  and, 
to  speak  plainly,  to  every  man  whom  I  meet,  and  I  will  ask 
the  questions  which  I  ask  now ;  and  most  particularly  will  I 
do  this  to  you  my  fellow  citizens,  because  you  are  more 
nearly  related  to  me."* — Are  you  so  curious,  Socrates,  and 
such  a  busy-body?  and  how  does  it  concern  you  how  we 
act?  and  what  is  it  that  you  say?  Being  of  the  same  com- 
munity and  of  the  same  kin,  you  neglect  yourself,  and  show 
yourself  a  bad  citizen  to  the  state,  and  a  bad  kinsman  to 
your  kinsmen,  and  a  bad  neighbour  to  your  neighbours. 
Who  then  are  you  ? — Here  it  is  a  great  thing  to  say,  "I  am 
he  whose  duty  it  is  to  take  care  of  men ;  for  it  is  not  every 
little  heifer  which  dares  to  resist  a  lion ;  but  if  the  bull  comes 
up  and  resists  him,  say  to  the  bull,  if  you  choose,  'and  who 
are  you,  and  what  business  have  you  here?'  "  Man,  in 
every  kind  there  is  produced  something  which  excels;  in 
oxen,  in  dogs,  in  bees,  in  horses.  Do  not  then  say  to  that 
which  excels,  "Who  then  are  you  ?"  If  you  do,  it  will  find  a 
voice  in  some  way  and  say,  "I  am  such  a  thing  as  the  purple 
in  a  garment:  do  not  expect  me  to  be  like  the  others,  or 
blame  my  nature  that  it  has  made  me  different  from  the  rest 
of  men." 

What  then  ?  am  I  such  a  man  ?     Certainly  not.     And  are 


DISCOURSES  195 

you  such  a  man  as  can  listen  to  the  truth  ?  I  wish  you  were. 
But  however  since  in  a  manner  I  have  been  condemned  to 
wear  a  white  beard  and  a  cloak,  and  you  come  to  me  as  to  a 
philosopher,  I  will  not  treat  you  in  a  cruel  way  nor  yet  as  if 
I  despaired  of  you,  but  I  will  say,  Young  man,  whom  do 
you  wish  to  make  beautiful?  In  the  first  place,  know  who 
you  are  and  then  adorn  yourself  appropriately.  You  are  a 
human  being;  and  this  is  a  mortal  animal  which  has  the 
power  of  using  appearances  rationally.  But  what  is  meant 
by  "rationally"?  Conformably  to  nature^  and  completely. 
What  then  do  you  possess  which  is  peculiar?  Is  it  the  ani- 
mal part  ?  No.  Is  it  the  condition  of  mortality  ?  No.  Is 
it  the  power  of  using  appearances  ?^  No.  You  possess  the 
rational  faculty  as  a  peculiar  thing :  adorn  and  beautify  this ; 
but  leave  your  hair  to  him  who  made  it  as  he  chose.  Come, 
what  other  appellations  have  you  ?  Are  you  man  or  woman  ? 
Man.  Adorn  yourself  then  as  man,  not  as  woman. 
Woman  is  naturally  smooth  and  delicate;  and  if  she  has 
much  hair  (on  her  body),  she  is  a  monster  and  is  exhibited 
at  Rome  among  monsters.  And  in  a  man  it  is  monstrous 
not  to  have  hair ;  and  if  he  has  no  hair,  he  is  a  monster ;  but 
if  he  cuts  off  his  hairs  and  plucks  them  out,  what  shall  we 
do  with  him?  where  shall  we  exhibit  him?  and  under  what 
name  shall  we  show  him  ?  I  will  exhibit  to  you  a  man  who 
chooses  to  be  a  woman  rather  than  a  man.  What  a  terrible 
sight!  There  is  no  man  who  will  not  wonder  at  such  a 
notice.  Indeed  I  think  that  the  men  who  pluck  out  their 
hairs  do  what  they  do  without  knowing  what  they  do.  Man 
what  fault  have  you  to  find  with  your  nature?  That  it  made 
you  a  man  ?  What  then  ?  was  it  fit  that  nature  should  make 
all  human  creatures  women?  and  what  advantage  in  that 
case  would  you  have  had  in  being  adorned  ?  for  whom  would 
you  have  adorned  yourself,  if  all  human  creatures  were 
women?  But  you  are  not  pleased  with  the  matter:  set  to 
work  then  upon  the  whole  business.  Take  away — what  is 
its  name? — that  which  is  the  cause  of  the  hairs :  make  your- 
self a  woman  in  all  respects,  that  we  may  not  be  mistaken : 
do  not  make  one  half  man,  and  the  other  half  woman. 
Whom  do  you  wish  to  please?  The  women?  Please  them 
as  a  man.     Well ;  but  they  like  smooth  men.     Will  you  not 


196  EPICTETUS 

hang  yourself?  and  if  women  took  delight  in  catamites, 
would  you  become  one?  Is  this  your  business?  were  you 
born  for  this  purpose,  that  dissolute  women  should  delight 
in  you?  Shall  we  make  such  a  one  as  you  a  citizen  of  Cor- 
inth and  perchance  a  prefect  of  the  city,  or  chief  of  the 
youth,  or  general  or  superintendent  of  the  games?  Well, 
and  when  you  have  taken  a  wife,  do  you  intend  to  have  your 
hairs  plucked  out  ?  To  please  whom  and  for  what  purpose  ? 
And  when  you  have  begotten  children,  will  you  introduce 
them  also  into  the  state  with  the  habit  of  plucking  their 
hairs?  A  beautiful  citizen,  and  senator  and  rhetorician. 
We  ought  to  pray  that  such  young  men  be  bom  among  us 
and  brought  up. 

Do  not  so,  I  intreat  you  by  the  Gods,  young  man:  but 
when  you  have  once  heard  these  words,  go  away  and  say  to 
yourself,  "Epictetus  has  not  said  this  to  me :  for  how  could 
he?  but  some  propitious  God  through  him:  for  it  would 
never  have  come  into  his  thoughts  to  say  this,  since  he  is 
not  accustomed  to  talk  thus  with  any  person.  Come  then  let 
us  obey  God,  that  we  may  not  be  subject  to  his  anger."  You 
say,  No.  But  (I  say),  if  a  crow  by  his  croaking  signifies 
any  thing  to  you,  it  is  not  the  crow  which  signifies,  but  God 
through  the  crow;  and  if  he  signifies  any  thing  through  a 
human  voice,  will  he  not  cause  the  man  to  say  this  to  you, 
that  you  may  know  the  power  of  the  divinity,  that  he  signi- 
fies to  some  in  this  way,  and  to  others  in  that  way,  and  con- 
cerning the  greatest  things  and  the  chief  he  signifies  through 
the  noblest  messenger  ?     What  else  is  it  which  the  poet  says : 

"For  we  ourselves  have  warned  him,  and  have  sent 
Hermes  the  careful  watcher,  Argus'  slayer, 
The  husband  not  to  kill  nor  wed  the  wife."^ 

Was  Hermes  going  to  descend  from  heaven  to  say  this  to 
him  (^gisthus)  ?  And  now  the  gods  say  this  to  you  and 
send  the  messenger,  the  slayer  of  Argus,  to  warn  you  not 
to  pervert  that  which  is  well  arranged,  nor  to  busy  your- 
self about  it,  but  to  allow  a  man  to  be  a  man,  and  a  woman 
to  be  a  woman,  a  beautiful  man  to  be  as  a  beautiful  man, 
and  an  ugly  man  as  an  ugly  man,  for  you  are  not  flesh 
and  hair,  but  you  are  will  {lepoaipedti)]  and  if  your  will  is 


DISCOURSES  197 

beautiful,  then  you  will  be  beautiful.  But  up  to  the  present 
time  I  dare  not  tell  you  that  you  are  ugly,  for  I  think  that 
you  are  readier  to  hear  anything  than  this.  But  see  what 
Socrates  says  to  the  most  beautiful  and  blooming  of  men 
Alcibiades :  "Try  then  to  be  beautiful."  What  does  he  say  to 
him?  Dress  your  hair  and  pluck  the  hairs  from  your  legs? 
Nothing  of  that  kind.  But  adorn  your  will,  take  away  bad 
opinions.  How  with  the  body  ?  Leave  it  as  it  is  by  nature. 
Another  has  looked  after  these  things :  intrust  them  to  him. 
What  then,  must  a  man  be  uncleaned?  Certainly  not;  but 
what  you  are  and  are  made  by  nature,  cleanse  this.  A  man 
should  be  cleanly  as  a  man,  a  woman  as  a  woman,  a  child  as 
a  child.  You  say  no :  but  let  us  also  pluck  out  the  lion's 
mane,  that  he  may  not  be  uncleaned,  and  the  cock's  comb  for 
he  also  ought  to  be  cleaned.  Granted,  but  as  a  cock,  and  the 
lion  as  a  lion,  and  the  hunting  dog  as  a  hunting  dog. 

NOTES 

*  A  Pancratiast  is  a  man  who  is  trained  for  the  Pancratium,  that  is, 
both  for  boxing  and  wrestling.  The  Pentathlon  comprised  five  exercises, 
which  are  expressed  by  one  Greek  line, 

Leaping,  running,  the  quoit,  throwing  the  javelin,  wrestling. 

*  Comp.  Horace,  Sat.  ii.  3,  v.  253. 

Quaero,  faciasne  quod  olim 
Mutatus  Polemon?  etc. 

The  story  of  Polemon  is  told  by  Diogenes  Laertius.  He  was  a  dissolute 
youth.  As  he  was  passing  one  day  the  place  where  Xenocrates  was  lec- 
turing, he  and  his  drunken  companions  burst  into  the  school,  but  Pole- 
mon was  so  affected  by  the  words  of  the  excellent  teacher  that  he  came 
out  quite  a  different  man,  and  ultimately  succeeded  Xenocrates  in  the 
school  of  the  Academy.    See  Epictetus,  iv.  11,  30. 

*  Laius  consulted  the  oracle  at  Delphi  how  he  should  have  children. 
The  oracle  told  him  not  to  beget  children,  and  even  to  expose  them  if 
he  did.  Laius  was  so  foolish  as  to  disobey  the  god  in  both  respects,  for 
he  begot  children  and  brought  them  up.  He  did  indeed  order  his  child 
(Edipus  to  be  exposed,  but  the  boy  was  saved  and  became  the  murderer 
of  Laius. 

*  Plato,  Apolc^,  i.  9,  and  17. 

*  Cicero,  de  Fin.  ii.  Ji ;  Horace,  Epp.  i.  10.12.  This  was  the  great  prin- 
ciple of  Zeno,  to  live  according  to  nature.  Bishop  Butler  in  the  Preface 
to  his  Sermons  says  of  this  philosophical  principle,  that  virtue  consisted 
in  following  nature,  that  it  is  "a  manner  of  speaking  not  loose  and  un- 
determinate,  but  clear  and  distinct,  strictly  just  and  true." 

*  The  bare  use  of  objects  (appearances)  belongs  to  all  animals;  a 
rational  use  of  them  is  peculiar  to  man.     Mrs.  Carter,  Introd.  sec  7. 

^  From  the  Odyssey,  i,  37,  where  Zeus  is  speaking  of  iEgisthus. 


CHAPTER  II 

IN  WHAT  A  MAN  OUGHT  TO  BE  EXERCISED  WHO  HAS  MADE 
PROFICIENCY ;  AND  THAT  WE  NEGLECT  THE  CHIEF  THINGS 

THERE  are  three  things  (topics,  roirot)  in  which  a  man 
ought  to  exercise  himself  who  would  be  wise  and 
good.^  The  first  concerns  the  desires  and  the  aver- 
sions, that  a  man  may  not  fail  to  get  what  he  de- 
sires, and  that  he  may  not  fall  into  that  which  he  does  not 
desire.  The  second  concerns  the  movements  (towards  an 
object)  and  the  movements  from  an  object,  and  generally 
in  doing  what  a  man  ought  to  do,  that  he  may  act  according 
to  order,  to  reason,  and  not  carelessly.  The  third  thing  con- 
cerns freedom  from  deception  and  rashness  in  judgment,  and 
generally  it  concerns  the  assents  (dvyKaraSedEti).  Of  these 
topics  the  chief  and  the  most  urgent  is  that  which  relates  to 
the  affects  (ra  TtdBrf,  perturbations);  for  an  affect  is  pro- 
duced in  no  other  way  than  by  a  failing  to  obtain  that  which 
a  man  desires  or  falling  into  that  which  a  man  would  wish 
to  avoid.  This  is  that  which  brings  in  perturbations,  dis- 
orders, bad  fortune,  misfortunes,  sorrows,  lamentations,  and 
envy;  that  which  makes  men  envious  and  jealous;  and  by 
these  causes  we  are  even  unable  to  listen  to  the  precepts  of 
reason.  The  second  topic  concerns  the  duties  of  a  man ;  for 
I  ought  not  to  be  free  from  affects  {dTtaBrf)  like  a  statue,  but 
I  ought  to  maintain  the  relations  (dxedsig)  natural  and  ac- 
quired, as  a  pious  man,  as  a  son,  as  a  father,  as  a  citizen. 

The  third  topic  is  that  which  immediately  concerns  those 
who  are  making  proficiency,  that  which  concerns  the  security 
of  the  other  two,  so  that  not  even  in  sleep  any  appearance 
unexamined  may  surprise  us,  nor  in  intoxication,  nor  in 
melancholy.  This,  it  may  be  said,  is  above  our  power.  But 
the  present  philosophers  neglecting  the  first  topic  and  the 
second  (the  affects  and  duties),  employ  themselves  on 
the  third,  using  sophistical  arguments  {ueraTtiitTovTai;),  mak- 
ing conclusions  from  questioning,  employing  hypotheses, 
lying.     For  a  man  must,  as  it  is  said,  when  employed  on 

198 


DISCOURSES  199 

these  matters,  take  care  that  he  is  not  deceived.  Who  must  ? 
The  wise  and  good  man.  This  then  is  all  that  is  wanting 
to  you.  Have  you  successfully  worked  out  the  rest?  Are 
you  free  from  deception  in  the  matter  of  money  ?  If  you  see 
a  beautiful  girl,  do  you  resist  the  appearance?  If  your 
neighbour  obtains  an  estate  by  will,  are  you  not  vexed? 
Now  there  is  nothing  else  wanting  to  you  except  unchange- 
able firmness  of  mind  (djusTaTtToodia)?  Wretch,  you  hear 
these  very  things  with  fear  and  anxiety  that  some  person 
may  despise  you,  and  with  inquiries  about  what  any  person 
may  say  about  you.  And  if  a  man  come  and  tell  you  that  in 
a  certain  conversation  in  which  the  question  was.  Who  is 
the  best  philosopher,  a  man  who  was  present  said  that  a  cer- 
tain person  was  the  chief  philosopher,  your  little  soul  which 
was  only  a  finger's  length  stretches  out  to  two  cubits.  But  if 
another  who  is  present  says,  You  are  mistaken;  it  is  not 
worth  while  to  listen  to  a  certain  person,  for  what  does  he 
know  ?  he  has  only  the  first  principles,  and  no  more  ?  then  you 
are  confounded,  you  grow  pale,  you  cry  out  immediately,  I 
will  show  him  who  I  am,  that  I  am  a  great  philosopher. — It 
is  seen  by  these  very  things :  why  do  you  wish  to  show  it  by 
others  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  Diogenes  pointed  out  one  of 
the  sophists  in  this  way  by  stretching  out  his  middle  finger  ?^ 
And  then  when  the  man  was  wild  with  rage,  "This,"  he  said, 
"is  the  certain  person ;  I  have  pointed  him  out  to  you."  For  a 
man  is  not  shown  by  the  finger,  as  a  stone  or  a  piece  of  wood ; 
but  when  any  person  shows  the  man's  principles,  then  he 
shows  him  as  a  man. 

Let  us  look  at  your  principles  also.  For  is  it  not  plain 
that  you  vaHie  not  at  all  your  own  will  {itpoaipedi^),  but 
you  look  externally  to  things  which  are  independent  of  your 
will  ?  For  instance,  what  will  a  certain  person  say  ?  and  what 
will  people  think  of  you?  will  you  be  considered  a  man  of 
learning;  have  you  read  Chrysippus  or  Antipater?  for  if  you. 
have  read  Archedemus'  also,  you  have  every  thing  [that  you 
can  desire].  Why  are  you  still  uneasy  lest  you  should  not 
show  us  who  you  are  ?  Would  you  let  me  tell  you  what  man- 
ner of  man  you  have  shown  us  that  you  are  ?  You  have  ex- 
hibited yourself  to  us  as  a  mean  fellow,  querulous,  passion- 
ate, cowardly,  finding  fault  with  every  thing,  blaming  every 


200  EPICTETUS 

body,  never  quiet,  vain :  this  is  what  you  have  exhibited  to 
us.  Go  away  now  and  read  Archedemus;  then  if  a  mouse 
should  leap  down  and  make  a  noise,  you  are  a  dead  man. 
For  such  a  death  awaits  you  as  it  did* — what  was  the  man's 
name? — Crinis;  and  he  too  was  proud,  because  he  under- 
stood Archedemus. 

Wretch,  will  you  not  dismiss  these  things  that  do  not 
concern  you  at  all  ?  These  things  are  suitable  to  those  who 
are  able  to  learn  them  without  perturbation,  to  those  who 
can  say:  "I  am  not  subject  to  anger,  to  grief,  to  envy:  I 
am  not  hindered,  I  am  not  restrained.  What  remains  for 
me  ?  I  have  leisure,  I  am  tranquil :  let  us  see  how  we  must 
deal  with  sophistical  arguments ;  let  us  see  how  when  a  man 
has  accepted  an  hypothesis  he  shall  not  be  led  away  to  any 
thing  absurd."  To  them  such  things  belong.  To  those 
who  are  happy  it  is  appropriate  to  light  a  fire,  to  dine ;  if  they 
choose,  both  to  sing  and  to  dance.  But  when  the  vessel  is 
sinking,  you  come  to  me  and  hoist  the  sails.^ 

NOTES 

^KaXbiKai  ay (xBoi  is  the  usual  Greek  expression  to  signify  a  perfect 
man.  The  Stoics,  according  to  Stobaeus,  absurdedly  called  "virtue," 
KaXov  (beautiful),  because  it  naturally  "calls"  (  KaXsl)  to  itself  those 
who  desire  it.  The  Stoics  also  said  that  every  thing  good  was  beautiful 
(KaXoi),  and  that  the  good  and  the  beautiful  were  equivalent.  The 
Roman  expression  is  "Vir  bonus  et  sapiens."  Perhaps  the  phrase 
KaXoi  Kai  dyoBoi  arose  from  the  notion  of  beauty  and  goodness  being 
the  combination  of  a  perfect  human  being. 

*  To  point  out  a  man  with  the  middle  finger  was  a  way  of  showing  the 
greatest  contempt  for  him. 

*  As  to  Archedemus,  see  ii.  4,  11.  aitex^i?^  ditavra:  this  expression 
is  compared  by  Upton  with  Matthew  vi.  2,  aitixov6t  jxtdBov. 

*  Crinis  was  a  Stoic  philosopher  mentioned  by  Diogenes  Laertius. 
We  may  suppose  that  he  was  no  real  philosopher,  and  that  he  died  of 
fright. 

■*  The  philosopher  is  represented  as  being  full  of  anxiety  about  things 
which  do  not  concern  him,  and  which  are  proper  subjects  for  those 
only  who  are  free  from  disturbing  passions  and  are  quite  happy,  which 
is  not  the  philosopher's  condition.  He  is  compared  to  a  sinking  ship, 
and  at  this  very  time  he  is  supposed  to  be  employed  in  the  useless  labour 
of  hoisting  the  sails. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHAT  IS  THE  MATTER  ON  WHICH  A  GOOD  MAN  SHOULD  BE 
EMPLOYED^  AND  IN  WHAT  WE  OUGHT  CHIEFLY  TO  PRAC- 
TISE OURSELVES 

THE  material  for  the  wise  and  good  man  is  his  own 
ruling  faculty :  and  the  body  is  the  material  for  the 
physician  and  the  aliptes  (the  man  who  oils  per- 
sons) ;  the  land  is  the  matter  for  the  husbandman. 
The  business  of  the  wise  and  good  man  is  to  use  appearances 
conformably  to  nature :  and  as  it  is  the  nature  of  ^ery  soul 
to  assent  to  the  truth,  to  dissent  from  the  false,  and  to  remain 
in  suspense  as  to  that  which  is  uncertain-,  so  it  is  its  nature  to 
be  moved  towards  the  desire  of  the  good,  and  to  aversion 
from  the  evil ;  and  with  respect  to  that  which  is  neither  good 
nor  bad  it  feels  indifferent.  For  as  the  money-changer 
(banker)  is  not  allowed  to  reject  Caesar's  coin,  nor  the  seller 
of  herbs,  but  if  you  show  the  coin,  whether  he  chooses  or  not, 
he  must  give  up  what  is  sold  for  the  coin ;  so  it  is  also  in  the 
matter  of  the  soul.  When  the  good  appears,  it  immediately 
attracts  to  itself ;  the  evil  repels  from  itself.  But  the  soul  will 
never  reject  the  manifest  appearance  of  the  good,  any  more 
than  persons  will  reject  Caesar's  coin.  On  this  principle  de- 
pends every  movement  both  of  man  and  God. 

For  this  reason  the  good  is  preferred  to  every  intimate 
relationship  (obligation).  There  is  no  intimate  relation- 
ship between  me  and  my  father,  but  there  is  between 
me  and  the  good.  Are  you  so  hard-hearted  ?  Yes,  for  such 
is  my  nature ;  and  this  is  the  coin  which  God  has  given  me. 
For  this  reason  if  the  good  is  something  different  from  the 
beautiful  and  the  just,  both  father  is  gone  (neglected),  and 
brother  and  country,  and  every  thing.  But  shall  I  overlook 
my  own  good,  in  order  that  you  may  have  it,  and  shall  I  give 
it  up  to  you  ?  Why  ?  I  am  your  father.  But  you  are  not  my 
good.  I  am  your  brother.  But  you  are  not  my  good. 
But  if  we  place  the  good  in  a  right  determination  of 
the  will,  the  very  observance  of  the  relations  of  life  is 
M  aoi 


202  EPICTETUS 

good,  and  accordingly  he  who  gives  up  any  external  things, 
obtains  that  which  is  good.  Your  father  takes  away  your 
property.  But  he  does  not  injure  you.  Your  brother  will 
have  the  greater  part  of  the  estate  in  land.  Let  him  have 
as  much  as  he  chooses.  Will  he  then  have  a  greater  share 
of  modesty,  of  fidelity,  of  brotherly  affection  ?  For  who  will 
eject  you  from  this  possession?  Not  even  Zeus,  for  neither 
has  he  chosen  to  do  so;  but  he  has  made  this  in  my  owh 
power,  and  he  has  given  it  to  me  just  as  he  possessed  it  him- 
self, free  from  hindrance,  compulsion,  and  impediment. 
When  then  the  coin  which  another  uses  is  a  different  coin,  if 
a  man  presents  this  coin,  he  receives  that  which  is  sold  for  it. 
Suppose. that  there  comes  into  the  province  a  thievish  procon- 
sul, what  coin  does  he  use?  Silver  coin.  Show  it  to  him, 
and  carry  off  what  you  please.  Suppose  one  comes  who  is 
an  adulterer:  what  coin  does  he  use?  Little  girls.  Take,  a 
man  says,  the  coin,  and  sell  me  the  small  thing.  Give,  says  the 
seller,  and  buy  [what  you  want].  Another  is  eager  to  possess 
boys.  Give  him  the  coin,  and  receive  what  you  wish.  An- 
other is  fond  of  hunting:  give  him  a  fine  nag  or  a  dog. 
Though  he  groans  and  laments,  he  will  sell  for  it  that  which 
you  want.  For  another  compels  him  from  within,  he  who 
has  fixed  (determined)  this  coin.^ 

Against  (or  with  respect  to)  this  kind  of  thing  chiefly  a 
man  should  exercise  himself.  As  soon  as  you  go  out  in  the 
morning,  examine  every  man  whom  you  see,  every  man 
whom  you  hear;  answer  as  to  a  question,  What  have  you 
seen?  A  handsome  man  or  woman?  Apply  the  rule.  Is 
this  independent  of  the  will,  or  dependent?  Independent. 
Take  it  away.  What  have  you  seen?  A  man  lamenting 
over  the  death  of  a  child.  Apply  the  rule.  Death  is  a  thing 
independent  of  the  will.  Take  it  away.  Has  the  proconsul 
met  you?  Apply  the  rule.  What  kind  of  thing  is  a  pro- 
consul's office  ?  Independent  of  the  will,  or  dependent  on  it  ? 
Independent.  Take  this  away  also:  it  does  not  stand  ex- 
amination :  cast  it  away :  it  is  nothing  to  you. 

If  we  practised  this  and  exercised  ourselves  in  it  daily 
from  morning  to  night,  something  indeed  would  be  done. 
But  now  we  are  forthwith  caught  half  asleep  by  every  ap- 
pearance, and  it  is  only,  if  ever,  that  in  the  school  we  are 


THE  AUGURS 
From  a  painting  by  Jean  IA)n  Gerome 


DISCOURSES  203 

roused  a  little.  Then  when  we  go  out,  if  we  see  a  man 
lamenting,  we  say,  "He  is  undone."  If  we  see  a  consul,  we 
say,  "He  is  happy."  If  we  see  an  exiled  man,  we  say,  "He 
is  miserable."  If  we  see  a  poor  man,  we  say,  "He  is 
wretched :  he  has  nothing  to  eat." 

We  ought  then  to  eradicate  these  bad  opinions,  and  to 
this  end  we  should  direct  all  our  efforts.  For  what  is  weep- 
ing and  lamenting  ?  Opinion.  What  is  bad  fortune?  Opin- 
ion. What  is  civil  sedition,  what  is  divided  opinion,  what  is 
blame,  what  is  accusation,  what  is  impiety,  what  is  trifling? 
All  these  things  are  opinions,  and  nothing  more,  and  opinions 
about  things  independent  of  the  will,  as  if  they  were  good 
and  bad.  Let  a  man  transfer  these  opinions  to  things  de- 
pendent on  the  will,  and  I  engage  for  him  that  he  will  be 
firm  and  constant,  whatever  may  be  the  state  of  things 
■around  him.  Such  as  is  a  dish  of  water,  such  is  the  soul. 
Such  as  is  the  ray  of  light  which  falls  on  the  water,  such  are 
the  appearances.  \Vhen  the  water  is  moved,  the  ray  also 
seems  to  be  moved,  yet  it  is  not  moved.  And  when  then  a 
man  is  seized  with  giddiness,  it  is  not  the  arts  and  the  virtues 
which  are  confounded,  but  the  spirit  (the  nervous  power) 
on  which  they  are  impressed ;  but  if  the  spirit  be  restored  to 
its  settled  state,  those  things  also  are  restored. 

NOTE 

*  Mrs.  Carter  compares  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  vii.  21-23.  Schweig- 
hauser  says,  the  man  either  sees  that  the  thing  which  he  is  doing 
is  bad  or  unjust,  or  for  any  other  reason  he  does  not  do  the  thing 
willingly;  but  he  is  compelled,  and  allows  himself  to  be  carried  away 
by  the  passion  which  rules  him.  The  "another"  who  compels  is  God, 
Schweig.  says,  who  has  made  the  nature  of  man  such,  that  he  must 
postpone  everything  else  to  that  thing  in  which  he  places  his  Good: 
and  he  adds,  that  it  is  man's  fault  if  he  places  his  good  in  that  thing,  in 
which  God  has  not  placed  it. 

Some  persons  will  not  consider  this  to  be  satisfactory.  The  man  is 
"compelled  and  allows  himself  to  be  carried  away,"  etc.  The  notion  of 
"compulsion"  is  inconsistent  with  the  exercise  of  the  will.  The  man  is 
unlucky.  He  is  like  him  "who  sees,"  as  the  Latin  poet  says,  "the  better 
things  and  approves  of  them,  but  follows  the  worse." 


CHAPTER  IV 

AGAINST  A  PERSON  WHO  SHOWED  HIS  PARTISANSHIP  IN  AN 
UNSEEMLY  WAY  IN  A  THEATRE 

THE  governor  of  Epirus  having  shown  his  favour  to  an 
actor  in  an  unseemly  way  and  being  pubUcly  blamed 
on  this  account,  and  afterwards  having  reported  to 
Epictetus  that  he  was  blamed  and  that  he  was  vexed 
at  those  who  blamed  him,  Epictetus  said,  What  harm  have 
they  been  doing  ?  These  men  also  were  acting  as  partizans, 
as  you  were  doing.  The  governor  replied,  Does  then  any 
person  show  his  partizanship  in  this  way?  When  they  see 
you,  said  Epictetus,  who  are  their  governor,  a  friend  of 
Caesar  and  his  deputy,  showing  partizanship  in  this  way, 
was  it  not  to  be  expected  that  they  also  should  show  their 
partizanship  in  the  same  way?  for  if  it  is  not  right  to  show 
partizanship  in  this  way,  do  not  do  so  yourself ;  and  if  it  is 
right,  why  are  you  angry  if  they  followed  your  example? 
For  whom  have  the  many  to  imitate  except  you,  who  are 
their  superiors?  to  whose  example  should  they  look  when 
they  go  to  the  theatre  except  yours?  See  how  the  deputy 
of  Caesar  looks  on :  he  has  cried  out,  and  I  too  then  will  cry 
out.  He  springs  up  from  his  seat,  and  I  will  spring  up. 
His  slaves  sit  in  various  parts  of  the  theatre  and  call  out.  I 
have  no  slaves,  but  I  will  myself  cry  out  as  much  as  I  can 
and  as  loud  as  all  of  them  together.  You  ought  then  to 
know  when  you  enter  the  theatre  that  you  enter  as  a  rule  and 
example  to  the  rest  how  they  ought  to  look  at  the  acting. 
Why  then  did  they  blame  you?  Because  every  man  hates 
that  which  is  a  hindrance  to  him.  They  wished  one  person 
to  be  crowned ;  you  wished  another.  They  were  a  hindrance 
to  you,  and  you  were  a  hindrance  to  them.  You  were  found 
to  be  the  stronger;  and  they  did  what  they  could;  they 
blamed  that  which  hindered  them.  What  then  would  you 
have  ?  That  you  should  do  what  you  please,  and  they  should 
not  even  say  what  they  please?  And  what  is  the  wonder? 
Do  not  the  husbandmen  abuse  Zeus  when  they  are  hindered 

204 


DISCOURSES  205 

by  him?  do  not  the  sailors  abuse  him?  do  they  ever  cease 
abusing  Caesar?  What  then?  does  not  Zeus  know?  is  not 
what  is  said  reported  to  Caesar  ?  What  then  does  he  do  ?  he 
knows  that,  if  he  punished  all  who  abuse  him,  he  would  have 
nobody  to  rule  over.  What  then  ?  when  you  enter  the  thea- 
tre, you  ought  to  say  not,  "Let  Sophron  (some  actor)  be 
crowned,"  but  you  ought  to  say  this,  "Come  let  me  maintain 
my  will  in  this  matter  so  that  it  shall  be  conformable  to 
nature:  no  man  is  dearer  to  me  than  myself.  It  would  be 
ridiculous  then  for  me  to  be  hurt  (injured)  in  order  that 
another  who  is  an  actor  may  be  crowned.  Whom  then  do 
I  wish  to  gain  the  prize  ?  Why  the  actor  who  does  gain  the 
prize ;  and  so  he  will  always  gain  the  prize  whom  I  wish  to 
gain  it." — But  I  wish  Sophron  to  be  crowned. — Celebrate  as 
many  games  as  you  choose  in  your  own  house,  Nemean, 
Pythian,  Isthmian,  Olympian,  and  proclaim  him  victor.  But 
in  public  do  not  claim  more  than  your  due,  nor  attempt  to 
appropriate  to  yourself  what  belongs  to  all.  If  you  do  not 
consent  to  this,  bear  being  abused :  for  when  you  do  the 
same  as  the  many,  you  put  yourself  on  the  same  level  with 
them. 


CHAPTER  V 

AGAINST  THOSE  WHO  ON   ACCOUNT  OF  SICKNESS  GO  AWAY 

HOME 

I  AM  sick  here,  said  one  of  the  pupils,  and  I  wish  to  return 
home. — At  home,  I  suppose,  you  were  free  from  sick- 
ness. Do  you  not  consider  whether  you  are  doing  any 
thing  here  which  may  be  useful  to  the  exercise  of  your 
will,  that  it  may  be  corrected  ?  For  if  you  are  doing  nothing, 
towards  this  end,  it  was  to  no  purpose  that  you  came.  Go 
away.  Look  after  your  affairs  at  home.  For  if  your  ruling 
power  can  not  be  maintained  in  a  state  conformable  to  na- 
ture, it  is  possible  that  your  land  can,  that  you  will  be  able  to 
increase  your  money,  you  will  take  care  of  your  father  in  his 
old  age,  frequent  the  public  place,  hold  magisterial  office: 
being  bad  you  will  do  badly  any  thing  else  that  you  have 
to  do.  But  if  you  understand  yourself,  and  know  that  you 
are  casting  away  certain  bad  opinions  and  adopting  others  in 
their  place,  and  if  you  have  changed  your  state  of  life  from 
things  which  are  not  within  your  will  to  things  which  are 
within  your  will,  and  if  you  ever  say,  Alas !  you  are  not  say- 
ing what  you  say  on  account  of  your  father,  or  your  brother, 
but  on  account  of  yourself,  do  you  still  allege  your  sickness  ? 
Do  you  not  know  that  both  disease  and  death  must  surprise 
us  while  we  are  doing  something  ?  the  husbandman  while  he 
is  tilling  the  ground,  the  sailor  while  he  is  on  his  voyage? 
what  would  you  be  doing  when  death  surprises  you,  for  you 
must  be  surprised  when  you  are  doing  something?  If  you 
can  be  doing  anything  better  than  this  when  you  are  sur- 
prised, do  it.  For  I  wish  to  be  surprised  by  disease  or  death 
when  I  am  looking  after  nothing  else  than  my  own  will,  that 
I  may  be  free  from  perturbation,  that  I  may  be  free  from 
hindrance,  free  from  compulsion,  and  in  a  state  of  liberty.  I 
wish  to  be  found  practising  these  things  that  I  may  be  able 
to  say  to  God,  "Have  I  in  any  respect  transgressed  thy  com- 
mands ?  have  I  in  any  respect  wrongly  used  the  powers  which 
thou  gavest  me?  have  I  misused  my  perceptions  or  my  pre- 

206 


DISCOURSES  207 

conceptions  ( xpoX-^edt)  ?  have  I  ever  blamed  thee  ?  have 
I  ever  found  fault  with  thy  administration?  I  have  been 
sick,  because  it  was  thy  will,  and  so  have  others,  but  I  was 
content  to  be  sick.  I  have  been  poor  because  it  was  thy  will, 
but  I  was  content  also.  I  have  not  filled  a  magisterial  office, 
because  it  was  not  thy  pleasure  that  I  should :  I  have  never 
desired  it.  Hast  thou  ever  seen  me  for  this  reason  discon- 
tented? have  I  not  always  approached  thee  with  a  cheerful 
countenance,  ready  to  do  thy  commands  and  to  obey  thy 
signals?  Is  it  now  thy  will  that  I  should  depart  from  the 
assemblage  of  men?  I  depart.  I  give  thee  all  thanks  that 
thou  hast  allowed  me  to  join  in  this  thy  assemblage  of  men 
and  to  see  thy  works,  and  to  comprehend  this  thy  administra- 
tion." May  death  surprise  me  while  I  am  thinking  of  these 
things,  while  I  am  thus  writing  and  reading. 

But  my  mother  will  not  hold  my  head  when  I  am  sick. 
Go  to  your  mother  then;  for  you  are  a  fit  person  to  have 
your  head  held  when  you  are  sick. — But  at  home  I  used  to  lie 
down  on  a  delicious  bed. — Go  away  to  your  bed :  indeed  you 
are  fit  to  lie  on  such  a  bed  even  when  you  are  in  health :  do  not 
then  lose  what  you  can  do  there  (at  home). 

But  what  does  Socrates  say?*  As  one  man,  he  says,  is 
pleased  with  improving  his  land,  another  with  improving  his 
horse,  so  I  am  daily  pleased  in  observing  that  I  am  growing 
better.  Better  in  what?  in  using  nice  little  words?  Man, 
do  not  say  that.  In  little  matters  of  speculation  (Qeoop-^jnaTo)  ? 
what  are  you  saying? — And  indeed  I  do  not  see  what 
else  there  is  on  which  philosophers  employ  their  time. — Does 
it  seem  nothing  to  you  to  have  never  found  fault  with  any 
person,  neither  with  God  nor  man  ?  to  have  blamed  nobody  ? 
to  carry  the  same  face  always  in  going  out  and  coming  in? 
This  is  what  Socrates  knew,  and  yet  he  never  said  that  he 
knew  any  thing  or  taught  any  thing.^  But  if  any  man  asked 
for  nice  little  words  or  little  speculations,  he  would  carry  him 
to  Protagoras  or  to  Hippias;  and  if  any  man  came  to  ask 
for  potherbs,  he  would  carry  him  to  the  gardener.  Who 
then  among  you  has  this  purpose  (motive  to  action)  ?  for  if 
indeed  you  had  it,  you  would  both  be  content  in  sickness,  and 
in  hunger,  and  in  death.  If  any  among  you  has  been  in  love 
with  a  charming  girl,  he  knows  that  I  say  what  is  true.* 


«08  EPICTETUS 

NOTES 

*Xenophon  (Memorab.  i.  6,  14) ;  but  Epictetus  does  not  quote  the 
words,  he  only  gives  the  meaning.  Antoninus  (viii.  43)  says,  "Differ- 
ent things  delight  different  people.  But  it  is  my  delight  to  keep  the 
ruling  faculty  sound  without  turning  away  either  from  any  man  or  from 
any  of  the  things  which  happen  to  men,  but  looking  at  and  receiving  all 
with  welcome  eyes,  and  using  every  thing  according  to  its  value." 

'  Socrates  never  professed  to  teach  virtue,  but  by  showing  himself 
to  be  a  virtuous  man  he  expected  to  make  his  companions  virtuous  by 
imitating  his  example.     Xenophon,  Memorab.  i.  2,  3. 

*  Upton  explains  this  passage  thus :  "He  who  loves  knows  what  it  is 
to  endure  all  things  for  love.  If  any  man  then  being  captivated  with 
love  for  a  girl  would  for  her  sake  endure  dangers  and  even  death,  what 
would  he  not  endure  if  he  possessed  the  love  of  God,  the  Universal, 
the  chief  of  beautiful  things  ?" 


CHAPTER  VI 

MISCELLANEOUS 

WHEN  some  person  asked  him  how  it  happened  that 
since  reason  has  been  more  cultivated  by  the  men 
of  the  present  age  the  progress  made  in  former 
times  was  greater.  In  what  respect,  he  answered, 
has  it  been  more  cultivated  now,  and  in  what  respect  was  the 
progress  greater  then  ?  For  in  that  in  which  it  has  now  been 
more  cultivated,  in  that  also  the  progress  will  now  be  found. 
At  present  it  has  been  cultivated  for  the  purpose  of  resolving 
syllogisms,  and  progress  is  made.  But  in  former  times  it 
was  cultivated  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  governing 
faculty  in  a  condition  conformable  to  nature,  and  progress 
was  made.  Do  not  then  mix  things  which  are  different,  and 
do  not  expect,  when  you  are  labouring  at  one  thing  to  make 
progress  in  another.  But  see  if  any  man  among  us  when 
he  is  intent  upon  this,  the  keeping  himself  in  a  state  conform- 
able to  nature  and  living  so  always,  does  not  make  progress. 
For  you  will  not  find  such  a  man. 

The  good  man  is  invincible,  for  he  does  not  enter  the 
contest  where  he  is  not  stronger.  If  you  (his  adversary) 
want  to  have  his  land  and  all  that  is  on  it,  take  the  land; 
take  his  slaves,  take  his  magisterial  office,  take  his  poor  body. 
But  you  will  not  make  his  desire  fail  in  that  which  it  seeks, 
nor  his  aversion  fall  into  that  which  he  would  avoid.  The 
only  contest  into  which  he  enters  is  that  about  things  which 
are  within  the  power  of  his  will ;  how  then  will  he  not  be  in- 
vincible ? 

Some  person  having  asked  him  what  is  Common  sense, 
Epictetus  replied.  As  that  may  be  called  a  certain  Common 
hearing  which  only  distinguishes  vocal  sounds,  and  that 
which  distinguishes  musical  sounds  is  not  Common,  but 
artificial;  so  there  are  certain  things  which  men,  who  are 
not  altogether  perverted,  see  by  the  common  notions  which 
all  possess.  Such  a  constitution  of  the  mind  is  named  Com- 
mon sense.^ 

ao9 


2IO  EPICTETUS 

It  is  not  easy  to  exhort  weak  young  men ;  for  neither  is  it 
easy  to  hold  (soft)  cheese  with  a  hook.^  But  those  who 
have  a  good  natural  disposition,  even  if  you  try  to  turn  them 
aside,  cling  still  more  to  reason.  Wherefore  Rufus  gener- 
ally attempted  to  discourage  (his  pupils),  and  he  used  this 
method  as  a  test  of  those  who  had  a  good  natural  disposition 
and  those  who  had  not.  For  it  was  his  habit  to  say,  as  a 
stone,  if  you  cast  it  upwards,  will  be  brought  down  to  the 
earth  by  its  own  nature,  so  the  man  whose  mind  is  naturally 
good,  the  more  you  repel  him,  the  more  he  turns  towards 
that  to  which  he  is  naturally  inclined. 

NOTES 

^  The  Greek  is  Koivoi  vovi,  the  Communis  sensus  of  the  Romans,  and 
our  Common  sense.  Horace  (Sat.  i.  3,  65)  speaks  of  a  man  who  "com- 
muni  sensu  plane  caret,"  one  who  has  not  the  sense  or  understanding 
which  is  the  common  property  of  men. 

*  This  is  a  proverb  used  by  Bion,  as  Digenes  Laertius  says.  The 
cheese  was  new  and  soft,  as  tiie  ancients  used  it 


CHAPTER  VII 

TO  THE  ADMINISTRATOR  OF  THE  FREE  CITIES  WHO  WAS  AN 

EPICUREAN 

WHEN  the  administrator^  came  to  visit  him,  and  the 
man  was  an  Epicurean,  Epictetus  said,  It  is  prop- 
er for  us  who  are  not  philosophers  to  inquire  of 
you  who  are  philosophers,^  as  those  who  come  to 
a  strange  city  inquire  of  the  citizens  and  those  who  are  ac- 
quainted with  it,  what  is  the  best  thing  in  the  world,  in  order 
that  we  also  after  inquiry  may  go  in  quest  of  that  which  is 
best  and  look  at  it,  as  strangers  do  with  the  things  in  cities. 
For  that  there  are  three  things  which  relate  to  man,  soul, 
body,  and  things  external,  scarcely  any  man  denies.  It  re- 
mains for  you  philosophers  to  answer  what  is  the  best. 
What  shall  we  say  to  men?  Is  the  flesh  the  best?  and  was 
it  for  this  that  Maximus^  sailed  as  far  as  Cassiope  in  winter 
(or  bad  weather)  with  his  son,  and  accompanied  him  that 
he  might  be  gratified  in  the  flesh  ?  When  the  man  said  that 
it  was  not,  and  added,  "Far  be  that  from  him."  Is  it  not  fit 
then,  Epictetus  said,  to  be  actively  employed  about  the  best  ? 
It  is  certainly  of  all  things  the  most  fit.  What  then  do  we 
possess  which  is  better  than  the  flesh  ?  The  soul,  he  replied. 
And  the  good  things  of  the  best,  are  they  better,  or  the  good 
things  of  the  worse?  The  good  things  of  the  best.  And 
are  the  good  things  of  the  best  within  the  power  of  the  will 
or  not  within  the  power  of  the  will?  They  are  within 
the  power  of  the  will.  Is  then  the  pleasure  of  the  soul  a 
thing  within  the  power  of  the  will  ?  It  is,  he  replied.  And 
on  what  shall  this  pleasure  depend?  On  itself?  But  that 
can  not  be  conceived :  for  there  must  first  exist  a  certain  sub- 
stance or  nature  {ov6ta)  of  good,  by  obtaining  which  we 
shall  have  pleasure  in  the  soul.  He  assented  to  this  also. 
On  what  then  shall  we  depend  for  this  pleasure  of  the  soul  ? 
for  if  it  shall  depend  on  things  of  the  soul,  the  substance  (na- 
ture) of  the  good  is  discovered;  for  good  can  not  be  one 
thing,  and  that  at  which  we  are  rationally  delighted  another 

SIX 


212  EPICTETUS 

thing;  nor  if  that  which  precedes  is  not  good,  can  that  which 
comes  after  be  good,  for  in  order  that  the  thing  which  comes 
after  may  be  good,  that  which  precedes  must  be  good.  But 
you  would  not  affirm  this,  if  you  are  in  your  right  mind,  for 
you  would  then  say  what  is  inconsistent  both  with  Epicurus 
and  the  rest  of  your  doctrines.  It  remains  then  that  the 
pleasure  of  the  soul  is  in  the  pleasure  from  things  of  the 
body :  and  again  that  those  bodily  things  must  be  the  things 
which  precede  and  the  substance  (nature)  of  the  good. 

For  this  reason  Maximus  acted  foolishly  if  he  made  the 
voyage  for  any  other  reason  than  for  the  sake  of  the  flesh, 
that  is,  for  the  sake  of  the  best.  And  also  a  man  acts  fool- 
ishly if  he  abstains  from  that  which  belongs  to  others,  when 
he  is  a  judge  {dtKadrtfi)  and  able  to  take  it.  But,  if  you 
please,  let  us  consider  this  only,  how  this  thing  may  be  done 
secretly,  and  safely,  and  so  that  no  man  will  know  it.  For 
not  even  does  Epicurus  himself  declare  stealing  to  be  bad,* 
but  he  admits  that  detection  is ;  and  because  it  is  impossible 
to  have  security  against  detection,  for  this  reason  he  says, 
Do  not  steal.  But  I  say  to  you  that  if  stealing  is  done  clev- 
erly and  cautiously,  we  shall  not  be  detected :  further  also  we 
have  powerful  friends  in  Rome  both  men  and  women,  and 
the  Hellenes  ( Greeks )  are  weak,  and  no  man  will  venture  to 
go  up  to  Rome  for  the  purpose  (of  complaining).  Why  do 
you  refrain  from  your  own  good  ?  This  is  senseless,  foolish. 
But  even  if  you  tell  me  that  you  do  refrain,  I  will  not  believe 
you.  For  as  it  is  impossible  to  assent  to  that  which  appears 
false,  and  to  turn  away  from  that  which  is  true,  so  it  is  im- 
possible to  abstain  from  that  which  appears  good.  But 
wealth  is  a  good  thing,  and  certainly  most  efficient  in  pro- 
ducing pleasure.  Why  will  you  not  acquire  wealth  ?  And 
why  should  we  not  corrupt  our  neighbour's  w^ife,  if  we  can 
do  it  without  detection  ?  and  if  the  husband  foolishly  prates 
about  the  matter,  why  not  pitch  him  out  of  the  house?  If 
you  would  be  a  philosopher  such  as  you  ought  to  be,  if  a  per- 
fect philosopher,  if  consistent  with  your  own  doctrines,  [you 
must  act  thus] .  If  you  would  not,  you  will  not  differ  at  all 
from  us  who  are  called  Stoics ;  for  we  also  say  one  thing,  but 
we  do  another:  we  talk  of  the  things  which  are  beautiful 
(good),  but  we  do  what  is  base.     But  you  will  be  perverse 


DISCOURSES  213 

in  the  contrary  way,  teaching  what  is  bad,  practising  what  is 
good. 

In  the  name  of  God,*  are  you  thinking  of  a  city  of  Epicu- 
reans? [One  man  says],  "I  do  not  marry." — "Nor  I,  for  a 
man  ought  not  to  marry ;  nor  ought  we  to  beget  children,  nor 
engage  in  pubUc  matters."  What  then  will  happen  ?  whence 
will  the  citizens  come  ?  who  will  bring  them  up  ?  who  will  be 
governor  of  the  youth,  who  preside  over  gymnastic  exer- 
cises ?  and  in  what  also  will  the  teacher  instruct  them  ?  will  he 
teach  them  what  the  Lacedaemonians  were  taught,  or  what 
the  Athenians  were  taught  ?  Come  take  a  young  man,  bring 
him  up  according  to  your  doctrines.  The  doctrines  are  bad, 
subversive  of  a  state,  pernicious  to  families,  and  not  becom- 
ing to  women.  Dismiss  them,  man.  You  live  in  a  chief 
city:  it  is  your  duty  to  be  a  magistrate,  to  judge  justly,  to 
abstain  from  that  which  belongs  to  others ;  no  woman  ought 
to  seem  beautiful  to  you  except  your  own  wife,  and  no  youth, 
no  vessel  of  silver,  no  vessel  of  gold  (except  your  own). 
Seek  for  doctrines  which  are  consistent  with  what  I  say,  and 
by  making  them  your  guide  you  will  with  pleasure  abstain 
from  things  which  have  such  persuasive  power  to  lead  us 
and  overpower  us.  But  if  to  the  persuasive  power  of  these 
things,  we  also  devise  such  a  philosophy  as  this  which  helps 
to  push  us  on  towards  them  and  strengthens  us  to  this  end, 
what  will  be  the  consequence?  In  a  piece  of  toreutic®  art 
which  is  the  best  part  ?  the  silver  or  the  workmanship  ?  The 
substance  of  the  hand  is  the  flesh ;  but  the  work  of  the  hand  is 
the  principal  part  (that  which  precedes  and  leads  the  rest). 
The  duties  then  are  also  three :  those  which  are  directed  to- 
wards the  existence  of  a  thing ;  those  which  are  directed  to- 
wards its  existence  in  a  particular  kind ;  and  third,  the  chief 
or  leading  things  themselves.  So  also  in  man  we  ought  not 
to  value  the  material,  the  poor  flesh,  but  the  principal  {lead- 
ing things,  to.  itporfyovMsva).  What  are  these?  Engaging 
in  public  business,  marrying,  begetting  children,  venerating 
God,  taking  care  of  parents,  and  generally,  having  desires, 
aversions  ( ktcKXtveiv  ) ,  pursuits  of  things  and  avoidances,  in 
the  way  in  which  we  ought  to  do  these  things,  and  according 
to  our  nature.  And  how  are  we  constituted  by  nature? 
Free,  noble,  modest:  for  what  other  animal  blushes?  what 


2I4  EPICTETUS 

Other  is  capable  of  receiving  the  appearance  (the  impression) 
of  shame?  and  we  are  so  constituted  by  nature  as  to  subject 
pleasure  to  these  things,  as  a  minister,  a  servant,  in  order 
that  it  may  call  forth  our  activity,  in  order  that  it  may  keep 
us  constant  in  acts  which  are  conformable  to  nature, 

"But  I  am  rich  and  I  want  nothing." — Why  then  do  you 
pretend  to  be  a  philosopher?  Your  golden  and  your  silver 
vessels  are  enough  for  you.  What  need  have  you  of  princi- 
ples (opinions)  ?  "But  I  am  also  a  judge  {Kpirrti)  of  the 
Greeks." — Do  you  know  how  to  judge?  Who  taught  you  to 
know  ?  "Caesar  wrote  to  me  a  codicil."^  Let  him  write  and 
give  you  a  commission  to  judge  of  music;  and  what  will  be 
the  use  of  it  to  you?  Still  how  did  you  become  a  judge? 
whose  hand  did  you  kiss  ?  the  hand  of  Symphorus  or  Nume- 
nius?  Before  whose  bedchamber  have  you  slept?®  To 
whom  have  you  sent  gifts  ?  Then  do  you  not  see  that  to  be 
a  judge  is  just  of  the  same  value  as  Numenius  is?  "But  I" 
can  throw  into  prison  any  man  whom  I  please." — So  you  can 
do  with  a  stone. — "But  I  can  beat  with  sticks  whom  I  please." 
— So  you  may  an  ass.  This  is  not  a  governing  of  men. 
Govern  us  as  rational  animals:  show  us  what  is  profitable 
to  us,  and  we  will  follow  it :  show  us  what  is  unprofitable,  and 
we  will  turn  away  from  it.  Make  us  imitators  of  yourself,  as 
Socrates  made  men  imitators  of  himself.  For  he  was  like 
a  governor  of  men,  who  made  them  subject  to  him  their  de- 
sires, their  aversion,  their  movements  towards  an  object  and 
their  turning  away  from  it. — Do  this :  do  not  do  this :  if  you 
do  not  obey,  I  will  throw  you  into  prison. — This  is  not  gov- 
erning men  like  rational  animals.  But  I  (say)  :  As  Zeus  has 
ordained,  so  act:  if  you  do  not  act  so,  you  will  feel  the 
penalty,  you  will  be  punished. — What  will  be  the  punish- 
ment ?  Nothing  else  than  not  having  done  your  duty :  you 
will  lose  the  character  of  fidelity,  modesty,  propriety.  Do 
not  look  for  greater  penalties  than  these. 

NOTES 

*The  Greek  is  StopBoori^i.     The  Latin  word  is  Corrector,  which  occurs 
in  inscriptions,  and  elsewhere. 

•  The  Epicureans  are  ironically  named  Philosophers,  for  most  of  them 
were  arrogant  men. 

•  Maximus  was  appointed  by  Trajan  to  conduct  a  campaign  against 
the  Parthians,  in  which  he  lost  his  life. 


DISCOURSES  215 

Cassiope  or  Cassope  is  a  city  in  Epirus,  near  the  sea,  and  between 
Pandosia  and  Nicopolis,  where  Epictetus  lived. 

*  Diogenes  Laertius,  quoted  by  Upton.  "Injustice,"  says  Epicurus 
"is  not  an  evil  in  itself,  but  the  evil  is  in  the  fear  which  there  is  on 
account  of  suspicion." 

'  Upton  compares  the  passage  (v.  333)  in  the  "Cyclops"  of  Euripides, 
who  speaks  like  an  Epicurean.  Not  to  marry  and  not  to  engage  in 
public  affairs  were  Epicurean  doctrines. 

•  The  toreutic  art  is  the  art  of  working  in  metal,  stone,  or  wood,  and 
of  making  figures  on  them  in  relief  or  by  cutting  into  the  material. 

'  A  codicillus  is  a  small  codex  and  the  original  sense  of  codex  is  a 
strong  stem  or  stump.  Lastly  it  was  used  for  a  book,  and  even  for  a 
will.  Codicilli  were  small  writing-tablets,  covered  with  wax,  on  which 
men  wrote  with  a  stylus  or  pointed  metal.  Lastly,  codicillus  is  a  book 
or  writing  generally;  and  a  writing  or  letter  by  which  the  emperor 
conferred  any  office.  Our  word  codicil  has  only  one  sense,  which  is  a 
small  writing  added  or  subjoined  to  a  will  or  testament,  but  this  sense 
is  also  derived  from  the  Roman  use  of  the  word.  (Dig.  29,  tit.  7,  de 
jure  codicillorum.) 

'  Upton  supposes  this  to  mean,  whose  bedchamber  man  are  you  ?  and 
he  compares  i.  19.  Schweig.  says  that  this  is  not  the  meaning  here, 
and  that  the  meaning  is  this :  He  who  before  daybreak  is  waiting  at  the 
door  of  a  rich  man,  whose  favour  he  seeks,  is  said  in  a  derisive  way  to 
be  passing  the  night  before  a  man's  chamber. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HOW  WE  MUST  EXERCISE  OURSELVES  AGAINST  APPEARANCES 

AS  we  exercise  ourselves  against  sophistical  questions, 
so  we  ought  to  exercise  ourselves  daily  against  ap- 
pearances ;  for  these  appearances  also  propose  ques- 
tions to  us.  A  certain  person's  son  is  dead.  An- 
swer; the  thing  is  not  within  the  power  of  the  will :  it  is  not 
an  evil.  A  father  has  disinherited  a  certain  son.  What  do 
you  think  of  it  ?  It  is  a  thing  beyond  the  power  of  the  will, 
not  an  evil.  Caesar  has  condemned  a  person.  It  is  a  thing 
beyond  the  power  of  the  will,  not  an  evil.  The  man  is  af- 
flicted at  this.  Affliction  is  a  thing  which  depends  on  the 
will :  it  is  an  evil.  He  has  borne  the  condemnation  bravely. 
That  is  a  thing  within  the  power  of  the  will :  it  is  a  good.  If 
we  train  ourselves  in  this  manner,  we  shall  make  progress; 
for  we  shall  never  assent  to  any  thing  of  which  there  is  not 
an  appearance  capable  of  being  comprehended.  Your  son  is 
dead.  What  has  happened?  Your  son  is  dead.  Nothing 
more  ?  Nothing.  Your  ship  is  lost.  What  has  happened  ? 
Your  ship  is  lost.  A  man  has  been  led  to  prison.  What  has 
happened  ?  He  has  been  led  to  prison.  But  that  herein  he 
has  fared  badly,  every  man  adds  from  his  own  opinion.  But 
Zeus,  you  say,  does  not  do  right  in  these  matters.  Why? 
because  he  has  made  you  capable  of  endurance?  because  he 
has  made  you  magnanimous  ?  because  he  has  taken  from  that 
which  befalls  you  the  power  of  being  evils  ?  because  it  is  in 
your  power  to  be  happy  while  you  are  suffering  what  you 
suffer ;  because  he  has  opened  the  door  to  you,  when  things 
do  not  please  you  ?     Man,  go  out  and  do  not  complain. 

Hear  how  the  Romans  feel  towards  philosophers,  if  you 
would  like  to  know.  Italicus,  who  was  the  most  in  repute 
of  the  philosophers,  once  when  I  was  present  being  vexed 
with  his  own  friends  and  as  if  he  was  suffering  something 
intolerable  said,  "I  can  not  bear  it,  you  are  killing  me :  you 
will  make  me  such  as  that  man  is ;"  pointing  to  me. 

216 


CHAPTER  IX 

TO  A  CERTAIN  RHETORICIAN  WHO  WAS  GOING  UP  TO  ROME  ON 

A  SUIT 

WHEN  a  certain  person  came  to  him,  who  was  going 
up  to  Rome  on  account  of  a  suit  which  had  re- 
gard to  his  rank,  Epictetus  enquired  the  reason 
of  his  going  to  Rome,  and  the  man  then  asked 
what  he  thought  about  the  matter.  Epictetus  repHed,  If 
you  ask  me  what  you  will  do  in  Rome,  whether  you  will  suc- 
ceed or  fail,  I  have  no  rule  {BedopTj/xa)  about  this.  But  if 
you  ask  me  how  you  will  fare,  I  can  tell  you:  if  you  have 
right  opinions  {Soyfiara),  you  will  fare  well;  if  they  are 
false,  you  will  fare  ill.  For  to  every  man  the  cause  of  his 
acting  is  opinion.  For  what  is  the  reason  why  you  desired 
to  be  elected  governor  of  the  Cnossians?  Your  opinion. 
What  is  the  reason  that  you  are  now  going  up  to  Rome? 
Your  opinion.  And  going  in  winter,  and  with  danger  and 
expense. — I  must  go. — What  tells  you  this  ?  Your  opinion. 
Then  if  opinions  are  the  causes  of  all  actions,  and  a  man  has 
bad  opinions,  such  as  the  cause  may  be,  such  also  is  the  effect. 
Have  we  then  all  sound  opinions,  both  you  and  your  adver- 
sary? And  how  do  you  differ?  But  have  you  sounder 
opinions  than  your  adversary?  Why?  You  think  so. 
And  so  does  he  think  that  his  opinions  are  better ;  and  so  do 
madmen.  This  is  a  bad  criterion.  But  show  to  me  that  you 
have  made  some  inquiry  into  your  opinions  and  have  taken 
some  pains  about  them.  And  as  now  you  are  sailing  to 
Rome  in  order  to  become  governor  of  the  Cnossians,  and 
you  are  not  content  to  stay  at  home  with  the  honours  which 
you  had,  but  you  desire  something  greater  and  more  con- 
spicuous, so  when  did  you  ever  make  a  voyage  for  the  pur- 
pose of  examining  your  own  opinions,  and  casting  them  out, 
if  you  have  any  that  are  bad  ?  Whom  have  you  approached 
for  this  purpose?  What  time  have  you  fixed  for  it ?  What 
age?  Go  over  the  times  of  your  life  by  yourself,  if  you  are 
ashamed  of  me  (knowing  the  fact),  when  you  were  a  boy, 

217 


2l8  EPICTETUS 

did  you  examine  your  own  opinions  ?  and  did  you  not  then, 
as  you  do  all  things  now,  do  as  you  did  do?  and  when  you 
were  become  a  youth  and  attended  the  rhetoricians,  and 
yourself  practised  rhetoric,  what  did  you  imagine  that  you 
were  deficient  in?  And  when  you  were  a  young  man  and 
engaged  in  public  matters,  and  pleaded  causes  yourself,  and 
were  gaining  reputation,  who  then  seemed  your  equal  ?  And 
when  would  you  have  submitted  to  any  man  examining  and 
showing  that  your  opinions  are  bad?  What  then  do  you 
wish  me  to  say  to  you? — Help  me  in  this  matter. — I  have 
no  theorem  (rule)  for  this.  Nor  have  you,  if  you  came 
to  me  for  this  purpose,  come  to  me  as  a  philosopher,  but  as 
to  a  seller  of  vegetables  or  a  shoemaker.  For  what  purpose 
then  have  philosophers  theorems?  For  this  purpose,  that 
whatever  may  happen,  our  ruling  faculty  may  be  and  con- 
tinue to  be  conformable  to  nature.  Does  this  seem  to  you  a 
small  thing? — No;  but  the  greatest. — What  then?  does  it 
need  only  a  short  time?  and  is  it  possible  to  seize  it  as  you 
pass  by  ?     If  you  can,  seize  it. 

Then  you  will  say,  I  met  with  Epictetus  as  I  should  meet 
with  a  stone  or  a  statue :  for  you  saw  me,  and  nothing  more. 
But  he  meets  with  a  man  as  a  man,  who  learns  his  opinions, 
and  in  his  turn  shows  his  own.  Learn  my  opinions :  show 
me  yours;  and  then  say  that  you  have  visited  me.  Let  us 
examine  one  another:  if  I  have  any  bad  opinion,  take  it 
away:  if  you  have  any,  show  it.  This  is  the  meaning  of 
meeting  with  a  philosopher. — Not  so,  (you  say)  :  but  this 
is  only  a  passing  visit,  and  while  we  are  hiring  the  vessel,  we 
can  also  see  Epictetus.  Let  us  see  what  he  says.  Then  you 
go  away  and  say :  Epictetus  was  nothing ;  he  used  solecisms 
and  spoke  in  a  barbarous  way.  For  of  what  else  do  you 
come  as  judges  ? — Well,  but  a  man  may  say  to  me,  if  I  attend 
to  such  matters  (as  you  do),  I  shall  have  no  land,  as  you 
have  none ;  I  shall  have  no  silver  cups  as  you  have  none,  nor 
fine  beasts  as  you  have  none. — In  answer  to  this  it  is  perhaps 
sufficient  to  say :  I  have  no  need  of  such  things :  but  if  you 
possess  many  things,  you  have  need  of  others :  whether  you 
choose  or  not,  you  are  poorer  than  I  am.  What  then  have 
I  need  of?  Of  that  which  you  have  not:  of  firmness,  of  a 
mind  which  is  conformable  to  nature,  of  being  free  from 


DISCOURSES  219 

perturbation.  Whether  I  have  a  patron*  or  not,  what  is 
that  to  me?  but  it  is  something  to  you.  I  am  richer  than 
you :  I  am  not  anxious  what  Caesar  will  think  of  me :  for  this 
reason,  I  flatter  no  man.  This  is  what  I  possess  instead  of 
vessels  of  silver  and  gold.  You  have  utensils  of  gold;  but 
your  discourse,  your  opinions,  your  assents,  your  move- 
ments (pursuits),  your  desires  are  of  earthenware.  But 
when  I  have  these  things  conformable  to  nature,  why  should 
I  not  employ  my  studies  also  upon  reason  ?  for  I  have  leisure : 
my  mind  is  not  distracted.  What  shall  I  do,  since  I  have  no 
distraction  ?  What  more  suitable  to  a  man  have  I  than  this  ? 
When  you  have  nothing  to  do,  you  are  disturbed,  you  go  to 
the  theatre  or  you  wander  about  without  a  purpose.  Why 
should  not  the  philosopher  labour  to  improve  his  reason? 
You  employ  yourself  about  crystal  vessels :  I  employ  myself 
about  the  syllogism  named  the  lying  •?  you  about  myrrhine^ 
vessels;  I  employ  myself  about  the  syllogism  named  the 
denying  {^rov  djto<pdcrtcovroi).  To  you  every  thing  appears 
small  that  you  possess :  to  me  all  that  I  have  appears  great. 
Your  desire  is  insatiable:  mine  is  satisfied.  To  (children) 
who  put  their  hand  into  a  narrow-necked  earthen  vessel  and 
bring  out  figs  and  nuts,  this  happens;  if  they  fill  the  hand, 
they  can  not  take  it  out,  and  then  they  cry.  Drop  a  few  of 
them  and  you  will  draw  things  out.  And  do  you  part  with 
your  desires :  do  not  desire  many  things  and  you  will  have 
what  you  want. 

NOTES 

*  The  Roman  word  "patronus,"  which  at  that  time  had  the  sense  of  a 
protector. 

*  On  the  syllogism  named  lying  ( <pev86juEvoz)  see  Epict.  ii.  17,  34. 

*  "Murrhina  vasa"  were  reckoned  very  precious  by  the  Romans,  and 
they  gave  great  prices  for  them.  It  is  not  certain  of  what  material  they 
were  made. 


CHAPTER  X 

IN   WHAT   MANNER   WE   OUGHT   TO    BEAR   SICKNESS 

WHEN  the  need  of  each  opinion  comes,  we  ought  to 
have  it  in  readiness  ■}    on  the  occasion  of  break- 
fast, such  opinions  as  relate  to  breakfast;    in  the 
bath,  those  that  concern  the  bath;    in  bed,  those 
that  concern  bed. 

"  Let  sleep  not  come  upon  thy  languid  eyes, 
Before  each  daily  action  thou  hast  scann'd: 
What's  done  amiss,  what  done,  what  left  undone; 
From  first  to  last  examine  all,  and  then 
Blame  what  is  wrong,  in  what  is  right  rejoice.'" 

And  we  ought  to  retain  these  verses  in  such  way  that  we 
may  use  them,  not  that  we  may  utter  them  aloud,  as  when 
we  exclaim  "Psean  Apollo."^  Again  in  fever  we  should  have 
ready  such  opinions  as  concern  a  fever;  and  we  ought  not, 
as  soon  as  the  fever  begins,  to  lose  and  forget  all.  (A  man 
who  has  a  fever)  may  say:  If  I  philosophize  any  longer, 
may  I  be  hanged :  wherever  I  go,  I  must  take  care  of  the  poor 
body,  that  a  fever  may  not  come.  But  what  is  philosophi- 
zing ?  Is  it  not  a  preparation  against  events  which  may  hap- 
pen ?  Do  you  not  understand  that  you  are  saying  something 
of  this  kind?  "If  I  shall  still  prepare  myself  to  bear  with 
patience  what  happens,  may  I  be  hanged."  But  this  is  just 
as  if  a  man  after  receiving  blows  should  give  up  the  Pan- 
cratium. In  the  Pancratium  it  is  in  our  power  to  desist  and 
not  to  receive  blows.  But  in  the  other  matter  if  we  give  up 
philosophy,  what  shall  we  gain?  What  then  should  a  man 
say  on  the  occasion  of  each  painful  thing?  It  was  for  this 
that  I  exercised  myself,  for  this  I  disciplined  myself.  God 
says  to  you,  "Give  me  a  proof  that  you  have  duly  practised 
athletics,*  that  you  have  eaten  what  you  ought,  that  you  have 
been  exercised,  that  you  have  obeyed  the  aliptes  (the  oiler 
and  rubber)."  Then  do  you  show  yourself  weak  when  the 
time  for  action  comes  ?    Now  is  the  time  for  the  fever.    Let 

220 


DISCOURSES  221 

it  be  borne  well.  Now  is  the  time  for  thirst,  bear  it  well ; 
now  is  the  time  for  hunger,  bear  it  well.  Is  it  not  in  your 
power?  who  shall  hinder  you?  The  physician  will  hinder 
you  from  drinking ;  but  he  can  not  prevent  you  from  bearing 
thirst  well :  and  he  will  hinder  you  from  eating ;  but  he  can 
not  prevent  you  from  bearing  hunger  well. 

But  I  can  not  attend  to  my  philosophical  studies.  And 
for  what  purpose  do  you  follow  them?  Slave,  is  it  not 
that  you  may  be  happy,  that  you  may  be  constant,  is  it  not 
that  you  be  in  a  state  conformable  to  nature  and  live 
so  ?  What  hinders  you  when  you  have  a  fever  from  having 
your  ruling  faculty  conformable  to  nature?  Here  is  the 
proof  of  the  thing,  here  is  the  test  of  the  philosopher.  For 
this  also  is  a  part  of  life,  like  walking,  like  sailing,  like 
journeying  by  land,  so  alsois  fever.  Do  you  read  when  you 
are  walking?  No.  Nor  do  you  when  you  have  a  fever. 
But  if  you  walk  about  well,  you  have  all  that  belongs  to  a 
man  who  walks.  If  you  bear  a  fever  well,  you  have  all 
that  belongs  to  a  man  in  a  fever.  What  is  it  to  bear  a  fever 
well  ?  Not  to  blame  God  or  man ;  not  to  be  afflicted  at  that 
which  happens,  to  expect  death  well  and  nobly,  to  do  what 
must  be  done :  when  the  physician  comes  in,  not  to  be  fright- 
ened at  what  he  says;  nor  if  he  says,  "You  are  doing  well," 
to  be  overjoyed.  For  what  good  has  he  told  you  ?  and  when 
you  were  in  health,  what  good  was  that  to  you  ?  And  even 
if  he  says,  "You  are  in  a  bad  way,"  do  not  despond.  For  what 
is  it  to  be  ill  ?  is  it  that  you  are  near  the  severance  of  the  soul 
and  the  body?  what  harm  is  there  in  this?  If  you  are  not 
near  now,  will  you  not  afterwards  be  near?  Is  the  world 
going  to  be  turned  upside  down  when  you  are  dead  ?  Why 
then  do  you  flatter  the  physician  ?'^  Why  do  you  say  if  you 
please,  master,  I  shall  be  well?*^  Why  do  you  give  him  an 
opportunity  of  raising  his  eyebrows  (being  proud ;  or  show- 
ing his  importance)  ?  Do  you  not  value  a  physician,  as  you 
do  a  shoemaker  when  he  is  measuring  your  foot,  or  a  car- 
penter when  he  is  building  your  house,  and  so  treat  the  phy- 
sician as  to  the  body  which  is  not  yours,  but  by  nature  dead  ? 
He  who  has  a  fever  has  an  opportunity  of  doing  this :  if  he 
does  these  things,  he  has  what  belongs  to  him.  For  it  is  not 
the  business  of  a  philosopher  to  look  after  these  externals. 


222  EPICTETUS 

neither  his  wine  nor  his  oil  nor  his  poor  body,  but  his  own 
ruling  power.  But  as  to  externals  how  must  he  act  ?  so  far  as 
not  to  be  careless  about  them.  Where  then  is  there  reason  for 
fear?  where  is  there  then  still  reason  for  anger,  and  of  fear 
about  what  belongs  to  others,  about  things  which  are  of  no 
value  ?  For  we  ought  to  have  these  two  principles  in  readi- 
ness, that  except  the  will  nothing  is  good  nor  bad ;  and  that 
we  ought  not  to  lead  events,  but  to  follow  them. — My  brother 
ought  not  to  have  behaved  thus  to  me. — No ;  but  he  will  see 
to  that :  and,  however  he  may  behave,  I  will  conduct  myself 
towards  him  as  I  ought.  For  this  is  my  own  business :  that 
belongs  to  another ;  no  man  can  prevent  this,  the  other  thing 
can  be  hindered. 

'    NOTES     . 

*  "As  physicians  have  always  their  instruments  and  knives  ready  for 
cases  which  suddenly  require  their  skill,  so  do  thou  have  principles 
{Sdyjuara),  ready  for  the  understanding  of  things  divine  and  human, 
and  for  doing  every  thing,  even  the  smallest,  with  a  recollection  of  the 
bond  which  unites  the  divine  and  human  to  one  another.  For  neither 
wilt  thou  do  anything  well  which  pertains  to  man  without  at  the  same 
time  having  a  reference  to  things  divine;  nor  the  contrary." — Marcus 
Aurelius. 

*  These  verses  are  from  the  Golden  verses  attributed  to  Pythagoras. 
See  iv.  6,  32. 

•The  beginning  of  a  form  of  prayer,  as  in  Macrobius,  Sat.  i.  17: 
"namque  Vestales  Virgines  ita  indigitant:  Apollo  Maedice,  Apollo 
Paean." 

*eivo/i{^GOifjB\tf<Tai.  "St.  Paul  hath  made  use  of  this  very  expres- 
sion iav  MV  yojui/iooi  dBX^d^,  2  Tim.  ii.  3." — Mrs.  Carter. 

*  "Et  quid  opus  Cratero  magnos  promittere  montes  ?"  Persius,  iii.  65. 
Craterus  was  a  physician. 

*  Upton  compares  Matthew,  viii.  2.  "Lord,  if  thou  wilt,  thou  canst 
make  me  clean." 


CHAPTER  XI 

CERTAIN  MISCELLANEOUS  MATTERS 

THERE  are  certain  penalties  fixed  as  by  law  for  those 
who  disobey  the  divine  administration.  Whoever 
thinks  any  other  thing  to  be  good  except  those  things 
which  depend  on  the  will,  let  him  envy,  let  him  de- 
sire, let  him  flatter,  let  him  be  perturbed :  whoever  considers 
any  thing  else  to  be  evil,  let  him  grieve,  let  him  lament,  let 
him  weep,  let  him  be  unhappy.  And  yet,  though  so  severely 
punished,  we  can  not  desist. 

Remember  what  the  poet^  says  about  the  stranger: 

"Stranger,  I  must  not,  e'en  if  a  worse  man  come." 

This  then  may  be  applied  even  to  a  father :  I  must  not,  even 
if  a  worse  man  than  you  should  come,  treat  a  father  un- 
worthily; for  all  are  from  paternal  Zeus.  And  (let  the  same 
be  said)  of  a  brother,  for  all  are  from  the  Zeus  who  presides 
over  kindred.  And  so  in  the  other  relations  of  life  we  shall 
find  Zeus  to  be  an  inspector. 


^  The  poet  is  Homer.    The  complete  passage  is  in  the  Odyssey,  xiv. 
55,  et  seq. 

"Stranger,  I  must  not,  e'en  if  a  worse  man  come, 
111  treat  a  stranger,  for  all  come  from  Zeus, 
Strangers  and  poor." 


2«3 


CHAPTER  XH 

ABOUT   EXERCISE 

WE  ought  not  to  make  our  exercises  consist  in  means 
contrary  to  nature  and  adapted  to  cause  admira- 
tion, for  if  we  do  so,  we  who  call  ourselves  phi- 
losophers, shall  not  differ  at  all  from  jugglers. 
For  it  is  difficult  even  to  walk  on  a  rope ;  and  not  only  diffi- 
cult, but  it  is  also  dangerous.  Ought  we  for  this  reason  to 
practise  walking  on  a  rope,  or  setting  up  a  palm  tree,^  or  em- 
bracing statues  ?  By  no  means.  Every  thing  which  is  dif- 
ficult and  dangerous  is  not  suitable  for  practice ;  but  that  is 
suitable  which  conduces  to  the  working  out  of  that  which  is 
proposed  to  us.  And  what  is  that  which  is  proposed  to  us 
as  a  thing  to  be  worked  out  ?  To  live  with  desire  and  aver- 
sion (avoidance  of  certain  things)  free  from  restraint.  And 
what  is  this?  Neither  to  be  disappointed  in  that  which  you 
desire,  nor  to  fall  into  any  thing  which  you  would  avoid. 
Towards  this  object  then  exercise  (practice)  ought  to  tend. 
For  since  it  is  not  possible  to  have  your  desire  not  disap- 
pointed and  your  aversion  free  from  falling  into  that  which 
you  would  avoid,  without  great  and  constant  practice,  you 
must  know  that  if  you  allow  your  desire  and  aversion  to 
turn  to  things  which  are  not  within  the  power  of  the  will, 
you  will  neither  have  your  desire  capable  of  attaining  your 
object,  nor  your  aversion  free  from  the  power  of  avoiding 
that  which  you  would  avoid.  And  since  strong  habit  leads 
(prevails),  and  we  are  accustomed  to  employ  desire  and 
aversion  only  to  things  which  are  not  within  the  power  of 
our  will,  we  ought  to  oppose  to  this  habit  a  contrary  habit, 
and  where  there  is  great  slipperiness  in  the  appearances, 
there  to  oppose  the  habit  of  exercise. 

I  am  rather  inclined  to  pleasure:  I  will  incline  to  the 
contrary  side  above  measure  for  the  sake  of  exercise.  I 
am  averse  to  pain :  I  will  rub  and  exercise  against  this  the 
appearances  which  are  presented  to  me  for  the  purpose  of 
withdrawing  my  aversion  from  every  such  thing.     For  who 

224 


DISCOURSES  225 

is  a  practitioner  in  exercise?  He  who  practises  not  using 
his  desire,  and  applies  his  aversion  only  to  tljings  which  are 
within  the  power  of  his  will,  and  practises  most  in  the  things 
which  are  difficult  to  conquer.  For  this  reason  one  man 
must  practise  himself  more  against  one  thing  and  another 
against  another  thing.  What  then  is  it  to  the  purpose  to  set 
up  a  palm  tree,  or  to  carry  about  a  tent  of  skins,  or  a  mortar 
and  pestle?^  Practise,  man,  if  you  are  irritable,  to  endure  if 
you  are  abused,  not  to  be  vexed  if  you  are  treated  with  dis- 
honour. Then  you  will  make  so  much  progress  that,  even 
if  a  man  strikes  you  you  will  say  to  yourself.  Imagine  that 
you  have  embraced  a  statue:  then  also  exercise  yourself  to 
use  wine  properly  so  as  not  to  drink  much,  for  in  this  also 
there  are  men  who  foolishly  practise  themselves ;  but  first  of 
all  you  should  abstain  from  it,  and  abstain  from  a  young  girl 
and  dainty  cakes.  Then  at  last,  if  occasion  presents  itself, 
for  the  purpose  of  trying  yourself  at  a  proper  time  you  will 
descend  into  the  arena  to  know  if  appearances  overpower  you 
as  they  did  formerly.  But  at  first  fly  far  from  that  which 
is  stronger  than  yourself :  the  contest  is  unequal  between  a 
charming  young  girl  and  a  beginner  in  philosophy.  The 
earthen  pitcher,  as  the  saying  is,  and  the  rock  do  not  agree.* 
After  the  desire  and  the  aversion  comes  the  second  topic 
(matter)  of  the  movements  towards  action  and  the  with- 
drawals from  it;  that  you  may  be  obedient  to  reason,  that 
you  do  nothing  out  of  season  or  place,  or  contrary  to  any 
propriety  of  the  kind.  The  third  topic  concerns  the  assents, 
which  is  related  to  the  things  which  are  persuasive  and  at- 
tractive. For  as  Socrates  said,  we  ought  not  to  live  a  life 
without  examination,  so  we  ought  not  to  accept  an  appear- 
ance without  examination,  but  we  should  say,  Wait,  let  me 
see  what  you  are  and  whence  you  come;  like  the  watch  at 
night  (who  says)  "Show  me  the  pass  (the  Roman  tessera)." 
Have  you  the  signal  from  nature  which  the  appearance  that 
may  be  accepted  ought  to  have?  And  finally  whatever 
means  are  applied  to  the  body  by  those  who  exercise  it,  if 
they  tend  in  any  way  towards  desire  and  aversion,  they  also 
may  be  fit  means  of  exercise ;  but  if  they  are  for  display,  they 
are  the  indications  of  one  who  has  turned  himself  towards 
something  external  and  who  is  hunting  for  something  else 
15 


226  EPICTETUS 

and  who  looks  for  spectators  who  will  say,  "Oh  the  great 
man."  For  this  reason  Apollonius  said  well,  "When  you 
intend  to  exercise  yourself  for  your  own  advantage,  and  you 
are  thirsty  from  heat,  take  in  a  mouthful  of  cold  water,  and 
spit  it  out  and  tell  nobody."* 

MOTES 

^ "  To  set  up  a  palm  tree."  He  does  not  mean  a  real  palm  tree,  but 
something  high  and  upright.  The  climbers  of  palm  trees  are  mentioned 
by  Lucian,  de  Dea  Syria  (c  29).  Schweighauser  has  given  the  true  in- 
terpretation when  he  says  that  on  certain  feast  days  in  the  country  a 
high  piece  of  wood  is  fixed  in  the  earth  and  climbed  by  the  most  active 
youths  by  using  only  their  hands  and  feet.  In  England  we  know  what 
this  is. 

It  is  said  that  Diogenes  used  to  embrace  statues  when  they  were  cov- 
ered with  snow  for  tiie  purpose  of  exercising  himself.  I  suppose  bronze 
statues,  not  marble  which  might  be  easily  broken.  The  man  would  not 
remain  long  in  the  embrace  of  a  metal  statue  in  winter.  But  perhaps 
the  story  is  not  true.  I  have  heard  of  a  general,  not  an  English  general, 
setting  a  soldier  on  a  cold  cannon;  but  it  was  as  a  punishment. 

"This  was  done  for  the  sake  of  exercise  says  Upton;  but  I  don't 
understand  the  passage. 

'  There  is  a  like  fable  in  .^sop  of  the  earthen  pitcher  and  the  brazen. — 
Upton. 

*  Schweighauser  refers  to  Arrian's  "Expedition  of  Alexander"  (vi: 
26)  for  such  an  instance  of  Alexander's  abstinence.  There  was  an 
Apollonius  of  Tyana,  whose  life  was  written  bv  Philostratus :  but  it 
may  be  that  this  is  not  the  man  who  is  mentioned  here. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

WHAT   SOLITUDE   IS^    AND    WHAT    KIND   OF   PERSON    A   SOLI- 
TARY   MAN    IS 

SOLITUDE  is  a  certain  condition  of  a  helpless  man, 
For  because  a  man  is  alone,  he  is  not  for  that  reason 
also  solitary;  just  as  though  a  man  is  among  num- 
bers, he  is  not  therefore  not  solitary.  When  then 
we  have  lost  either  a  brother,  or  a  son,  or  a  friend  on  whom 
we  were  accustomed  to  repose,  we  say  that  we  are  left  soli- 
tary, though  we  are  often  in  Rome,  though  such  a  crowd 
meet  us,  though  so  many  live  in  the  same  place,  and  some- 
times we  have  a  great  number  of  slaves.  For  the  man  who  is 
solitary,  as  it  is  conceived,  is  considered  to  be  a  helpless  per- 
son and  exposed  to  those  who  wish  to  harm  him.  For  this 
reason  when  we  travel,  then  especially  do  we  say  that  we  are 
lonely  when  we  fall  among  robbers,  for  it  is  not  the  sight  of  a 
human  creature  which  removes  us  from  solitude,  but  the 
sight  of  one  who  is  faithful  and  modest  and  helpful  to  us. 
For  if  being  alone  is  enough  to  make  solitude,  you  may  say 
that  even  Zeus  is  solitary  in  the  conflagration^  and  bewails 
himself  saying,  "Unhappy  that  I  am  who  have  neither  Hera, 
nor  Athena,  nor  Apollo,  nor  brother,  nor  son,  nor  descend- 
ant, nor  kinsman."  This  is  what  some  say  that  he  does  when 
he  is  alone  at  the  conflagration.^  For  they  do  not  under- 
stand how  a  man  passes  his  life  when  he  is  alone,  because 
they  set  out  from  a  certain  natural  principle,  from  the  nat- 
ural desire  of  community  and  mutual  love  and  from  the 
pleasure  of  conversation  among  men.  But  none  the  less  a 
man  ought  to  be  prepared  in  a  manner  for  this  also  (being 
alone),  to  be  able  to  be  sufficient  for  himself  and  to  be  his 
own  companion.  For  as  Zeus  dwells  with  himself,  and  is 
tranquil  by  himself,  and  thinks  of  his  own  administration 
and  of  its  nature,  and  is  employed  in  thoughts  suitable  to 
himself ;  so  ought  we  also  to  be  able  to  talk  with  ourselves, 
not  to  feel  the  want  of  others  also,  not  to  be  unprovided  with 
the  means  of  passing  our  time;  to  observe  the  divine  admin- 

227 


228  EPICTETUS 

istration,  and  the  relation  of  ourselves  to  every  thing  else ;  to 
consider  how  we  formerly  were  affected  towards  things  that 
happen  and  how  at  present ;  what  are  still  the  things  which 
give  us  pain ;  how  these  also  can  be  cured  and  how  removed ; 
if  any  things  require  improvement,  to  improve  them  accord- 
ing to  reason. 

For  you  see  that  Caesar  appears  to  furnish  us  with  great 
peace,  that  there  are  no  longer  enemies  nor  battles  nor  great 
associations  of  robbers  nor  of  pirates,  but  we  can  travel  at 
every  hour  and  sail  from  east  to  west.  But  can  Caesar  give 
us  security  from  fever  also,  can  he  from  shipwreck,  from 
fire,  from  earthquake  or  from  lightning  ?  well,  I  will  say,  can 
he  give  us  security  against  love  ?  He  can  not.  From  sorrow  ? 
He  can  not.  From  envy?  He  can  not.  In  a  word  then  he 
can  not  protect  us  from  any  of  these  things.  But  the  doctrine 
of  philosophers  promises  to  give  us  security  (peace)  even 
against  these  things.  And  what  does  it  say?  Men,  if  you 
will  attend  to  me,  wherever  you  are,  whatever  you  are  doing, 
you  will  not  feel  sorrow,  nor  anger,  nor  compulsion,  nor 
hindrance,  but  you  will  pass  your  time  without  perturbations 
and  free  from  every  thing.  When  a  man  has  this  peace,  not 
proclaimed  by  Caesar,  (  for  how  should  he  be  able  to  proclaim 
it?),  but  by  God  through  reason,  is  he  not  content  when  he  is 
alone?  when  he  sees  and  reflects.  Now  no  evil  can  happen  to 
me ;  for  me  there  is  no  robber,  no  earthquake,  every  thing  is 
full  of  peace,  full  of  tranquillity :  every  way,  every  city,  every 
meeting,  neighbour,  companion  is  harmless.  One  person 
whose  business  it  is,  supplies  me  with  food;  another  with 
raiment;  another  with  perceptions,  and  preconceptions 
{itpoXT^rffeti).  And  if  he  does  not  supply  what  is  necessary, 
he  (God)  gives  the  signal  for  retreat,  opens  the  door,  and 
says  to  you,  "Go."  Go  whither?  To  nothing  terrible,  but  to 
the  place  from  which  you  came,  to  your  friends  and  kins- 
men, to  the  elements:  what  there  was  in  you  of  fire  goes 
to  fire;  of  earth,  to  earth;  of  air  (spirit),  to  air;  of  water  to 
water :  no  Hades,  nor  Acheron,  nor  Cocytus,  nor  Pyriphlege- 
thon,  but  all  is  full  of  Gods  and  Daemons.  When  a  man 
has  such  things  to  think  on,  and  sees  the  sun,  the  moon  and 
stars,  and  enjoys  earth  and  sea,  he  is  not  solitary  nor  even 
helpless.     Well  then,  if  some  man  should  come  upon  me 


DISCOURSES  229 

when  I  am  alone  and  murder  me?  Fool,  not  murder  You, 
but  your  poor  body. 

What  kind  of  solitude  then  remains  ?  what  want  ?  why  do 
we  make  ourselves  worse  than  children?  and  what  do  chil- 
dren do  when  they  are  left  alone?  They  take  up  shells  and 
ashes,  and  they  build  something,  then  pull  it  down,  and  build 
something  else,  and  so  they  never  want  the  means  of  pass- 
ing the  time.  Shall  I  then,  if  you  sail  away,  sit  down  and 
weep,  because  I  have  been  left  alone  and  solitary?  Shall  I 
then  have  no  shells,  no  ashes?  But  children  do  what  they 
do  through  want  of  thought  (or  deficiency  in  knowledge), 
and  we  through  knowledge  are  unhappy. 

Every  great  power  (faculty)  is  dangerous  to  beginners. 
You  must  then  bear  such  things  as  you  are  able,  but  con- 
formably to  nature :  but  not ....  Practise  sometimes  a  way  of 
living  like  a  person  out  of  health  that  you  may  at  some  time 
live  like  a  man  in  health.  Abstain  from  food,  drink  water, 
abstain  sometimes  altogether  from  desire,  in  order  that  you 
may  some  time  desire  consistently  with  reason;  and  if  con- 
sistently with  reason,  when  you  have  anything  good  in  you, 
you  will  desire  well. — Not  so;  but  we  wish  to  live  like  wise 
men  immediately  and  to  be  useful  to  men — Useful  how? 
what  are  you  doing  ?  have  you  been  useful  to  yourself  ?  But, 
I  suppose,  you  wish  to  exhort  them?  You  exhort  them! 
You  wish  to  be  useful  to  them.  Show  to  them  in  your  own 
example  what  kind  of  men  philosophy  makes,  and  don't  trifle. 
When  you  are  eating,  do  good  to  those  who  eat  with  you; 
when  you  are  drinking,  to  those  who  are  drinking  with  you ; 
by  yielding  to  all,  giving  way,  bearing  with  them,  thus  do 
them  good,  and  do  not  spit  on  them  your  phlegm  (bad 
humours). 

NOTES 

'  This  was  the  doctrine  of  Heraclitus  "that  all  things  were  composed 
from  (had  their  origin  in)  fire,  and  were  resolved  into  it,"  an  opinion 
afterwards  adopted  by  the  Stoics.  It  is  not  so  extravagant,  as  it  may 
appear  to  some  persons,  to  suppose  that  the  earth  had  a  beginning,  is 
in  a  state  of  continual  change,  and  will  finally  be  destroyed  in  some  way, 
and  have  a  new  beginning. 

'  The  Latin  translation  is :  "hoc  etiam  nonnulli  facturum  cum  in 
conflagratione  mundi  ....  aiunt."  But  the  word  is  icotei  :  and  this 
may  mean  that  the  conflagration  has  happened,  and  will  happen  again. 
The  Greek  philosophers  in  their  speculations  were  not  troubled  with 


230  EPICTETUS 

the  consideration  of  time.  Even  Herodotus  (ii:  11),  in  his  speculations 
on  the  gulf,  which  he  supposes  that  the  Nile  valley  was  once,  speaks  of 
the  possibility  of  it  being  tilled  up  in  20,000  years,  or  less.  Modern  specu- 
lators have  only  recently  become  bold  enough  to  throw  aside  the  notion 
of  the  earth  and  the  other  bodies  in  space  being  limited  by  time,  as  the 
ignorant  have  conceived  it 


CHAPTER  XIV 

CERTAIN  MISCELLANEOUS  MATTERS 

AS  bad*  tragic  actors  can  not  sing  alone,  but  in  company 
with  many:  so  some  persons  can  not  walk  about 
alone.  Man,  if  you  are  anything,  both  walk  alone 
and  talk  to  yourself,  and  do  not  hide  yourself  in  the 
chorus.  Examine  a  little  at  last,  look  around,  stir  yourself 
up,  that  you  may  know  who  you  are. 

When  a  man  drinks  water,  or  does  anything  for  the  sake 
of  practice  (discipline),  whenever  there  is  an  opportunity  he 
tells  it  to  all :  "I  drink  water."  Is  it  for  this  that  you  drink 
water,  for  the  purpose  of  drinking  water?  Man,  if  it  is 
good  for  you  to  drink,  drink;  but  if  not,  you  are  acting  ri- 
diculously. But  if  it  is  good  for  you  and  you  do  drink,  say 
nothing  about  it  to  those  who  are  displeased  with  water- 
drinkers.  What  then,  do  you  wish  to  please  these  very  men  ? 

Of  things  that  are  done  some  are  done  with  a  final  pur- 
pose {itpornyovfievooi)^  some  according  to  occasion,  others  with 
a  certain  reference  to  circumstances,  others  for  the  purpose 
of  complying  with  others,  and  some  according  to  a  fixed 
scheme  of  life.* 

You  must  root  out  of  men  these  two  things,  arrogance 
(pride)  and  distrust.  Arrogance  then  is  the  opinion  that 
you  want  nothing  (are  deficient  in  nothing)  :  but  distrust  is 
the  opinion  that  you  can  not  be  happy  when  so  many  circum- 
stances surround  you.  Arrogance  is  removed  by  confuta- 
tion; and  Socrates  was  the  first  who  practised  this.  And  (to 
know)  that  the  thing  is  not  impossible  inquire  and  seek. 
This  search  will  do  you  no  harm;  and  in  a  manner  this  is 
philosophizing,  to  see  how  it  is  possible  to  employ  desire  and 
aversion  {ktctcXiatt)  without  impediment. 

I  am  superior  to  you,  for  my  father  is  a  man  of  consular 
rank.  Another  says,  I  have  been  a  tribune,  but  you  have 
not.  If  we  were  horses,  would  you  say.  My  father  was 
swifter?  I  have  much  barley  and  fodder,  or  elegant  neck 
ornaments.  If  then  while  you  were  saying  this,   I  said, 

«3i 


232  EPICTETUS 

Be  it  SO :  let  us  run  then.  Well,  is  there  nothing  in  a  man 
such  as  running  in  a  horse,  by  which  it  will  be  known  which 
is  superior  and  inferior?  Is  there  not  modesty  {aiSooi), 
fidelity,  justice?  Show  yourself  superior  in  these,  that  you 
may  be  superior  as  a  man.  If  you  tell  me  that  you  can  kick 
violently,  I  also  will  say  to  you,  that  you  are  proud  of  that 
which  is  the  act  of  an  ass. 


'All  the  manuscripts  have  "good"    (KaXo{),  which  the  critics  have 
properly  corrected. 
*  This  section  is  not  easy  to  translate. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THAT    WE   OUGHT    TO    PROCEED    WITH    CIRCUMSPECTION    IN" 
EVERY   THING ^ 

IN  every  act  consider  what  precedes  and  what  follows,  and 
then  proceed  to  the  act.  If  you  do  not  consider,  you 
will  at  first  begin  with  spirit,  since  you  have  not  thought 
at  all  of  the  things  which  follow ;  but  afterwards  when 
some  consequences  have  shown  themselves,  you  will  basely 
desist  (from  that  which  you  have  begun). — I  wish  to  con- 
quer at  the  Olympic  games. — [And  I  too,  by  the  gods :  for  it 
is  a  fine  thing] .  But  consider  here  what  precedes  and  what 
follows ;  and  then,  if  it  is  for  your  good,  undertake  the  thing. 
You  must  act  according  to  rules,  follow  strict  diet,  abstain 
from  delicacies,  exercise  yourself  by  compulsion  at  fixed 
times,  in  heat,  in  cold ;  drink  no  cold  water,  nor  wine,  when 
there  is  opportunity  of  drinking  it.^  In  a  word  you  must 
surrender  yourself  to  the  trainer,  as  you  do  to  a  physician. 
Next,  in  the  contest,  you  must  be  covered  with  sand,^  some- 
times dislocate  a  hand,  sprain  an  ankle,  swallow  a  quantity 
of  dust,  be  scourged  with  the  whip;  and  after  undergoing 
all  this,  you  must  sometimes  be  conquered.  After  reck- 
oning all  these  things,  if  you  have  still  an  inclination,  go  to 
the  athletic  practice.  If  you  do  not  reckon  them,  observe 
you  will  behave  like  children  who  at  one  time  play  as 
wrestlers,  then  as  gladiators,  then  blow  a  trumpet,  then  act  a 
tragedy,  when  they  have  seen  and  admired  such  things.  So 
you  also  do :  you  are  at  one  time  a  wrestler  (athlete),  then  a 
gladiator,  then  a  philosopher,  then  a  rhetorician;  but  with 
your  whole  soul  you  are  nothing;  like  the  ape  you  imitate 
all  that  you  see;  and  always  one  thing  after  another  pleases 
you,  but  that  which  becomes  familiar  displeases  you.  For 
you  have  never  undertaken  any  thing  after  consideration, 
nor  after  having  explored  the  whole  matter  and  put  it  to  a 
strict  examination;  but  you  have  undertaken  it  at  hazard 
and  with  a  cold  desire.  Thus  some  persons  having  seen  a 
philosopher  and  having  heard  one  speak  like  Euphrates*  — 

'6  233 


234  EPICTETUS 

and  yet  who  can  speak  like  him? — wish  to  be  philosophers 
themselves. 

Man,  consider  first  what  the  matter  is  (which  you  propose 
to  do) ,  then  your  own  nature  also,  what  it  is  able  to  bear.  If 
you  are  a  wrestler,  look  at  your  shoulders,  your  thighs,  your 
loins:  for  different  men  are  naturally  formed  for  different 
things.  Do  you  think  that,  if  you  do  (what  you  are  doing 
daily),  you  can  be  a  philosopher?  Do  you  think  that  you 
can  eat  as  you  do  now,  drink  as  you  do  now,  and  in  the  same 
way  be  angry  and  out  of  humour  ?  You  must  watch,  labour, 
conquer  certain  desires,  you  must  depart  from  your  kinsmen, 
be  despised  by  your  slave,  laughed  at  by  those  who  meet  you, 
in  every  thing  you  must  be  in  an  inferior  condition,  as  to 
magisterial  office,  in  honours,  in  courts  of  justice.  When 
you  have  considered  all  these  things  completely,  then,  if  you 
think  proper,  approach  to  philosophy,  if  you  would  gain  in 
exchange  for  these  things  freedom  from  perturbations,  lib- 
erty, tranquillity.  If  you  have  not  considered  these  things, 
do  not  approach  philosophy :  do  not  act  like  children,  at  one 
time  a  philosopher,  then  a  tax  collector,  then  a  rhetorician, 
then  a  procurator  (officer)  of  Caesar.  These  things  are  not 
consistent.  You  must  be  one  man  either  good  or  bad :  you 
must  either  labour  at  your  own  ruling  faculty  or  at  external 
things :  you  must  either  labour  at  things  within  or  at  external 
things :  that  is,  you  must  either  occupy  the  place  of  a  philoso- 
pher or  that  of  one  of  the  vulgar. 

A  person  said  to  Rufus^  when  Galba  was  murdered,  "Is 
the  world  now  governed  by  Providence?"  But  Rufus  re- 
plied, "Did  I  ever  incidentally  form  an  argument  from  Galba 
that  the  world  is  governed  by  Providence?" 

NOTES 

* "  This  chapter  has  a  gfreat  conformity  to  Luke  xiv :  28,  etc.  But  it 
is  to  be  observed  that  Epictetus,  both  here  and  elsewhere,  supposes  some 
persons  incapable  of  being  philosophers;  that  is,  virtuous  and  pious 
men:  but  Christianity  requires  and  enables  all  to  be  such." — Mrs.  Car- 
ter. 

The  passage  in  Luke  contains  a  practical  lesson,  and  so  far  is  the  same 
as  the  teaching  of  Epictetus :  but  the  conclusion  in  v :  33  does  not  ap- 
pear to  be  helped  by  what  immediately  precedes  v.  28-32.  The  remark 
that  Christianity  "enables  all  to  be  such"  is  not  true,  unless  Mrs.  Carter 
gives  to  the  word  "enables"  a  meaning  which  I  do  not  see. 


DISCOURSES  235 

'  The  commentators  refer  us  to  Paul,  i  Cor.  c  9,  25.  Compare  Horace, 
"Ars  Poetica,"  39: 

"Versate  diu  quid  ferre  recusent, 
Quid  valeant  humeri." 

■  Wolf  thought  that  the  word  itapopv(r<rea^at  might  mean  the  loss 
of  an  eye ;  but  other  commentators  give  the  word  a  different  meaning. 

*  In  place  of  Euphrates  the  "Encheiridion"  29  had  in  the  text  "Socra- 
tes," which  name  the  recent  editors  of  the  "Encheiridion  altered  to  "Eu- 
phrates," and  correctly.  The  younger  Pliny  (i.  Ep.  10)  speaks  in  high 
terms  of  the  merits  and  attractive  eloquence  of  this  Syrian  philosopher 
Euphrates,  who  is  mentioned  by  M.  Antoninus  (x.  31)  and  by  others. 

*Rufus  was  a  philosopher.  See  i:  i,  i:  9.  Galba  is  the  emperor  Galba, 
who  was  murdered.  The  meaning  of  the  passage  is  rather  obscure,  and 
it  is  evident  that  it  does  not  belong  to  this  chapter.  Lord  Shaftesbury 
remarks  that  this  passage  perhaps  belongs  to  chapter  11  or  14,  or  per- 
haps to  the  end  of  chapter  17. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THAT  WE  OUGHT  WITH  CAUTION  TO  ENTER  INTO  FAMILIAR 
INTERCOURSE  WITH  MEN 

IF  a  man  has  frequent  intercourse  with  others  either  for 
talk,  or  drinking  together,  or  generally  for  social  pur- 
poses, he  must  either  become  like  them,  or  change  them 
to  his  own  fashion.  For  if  a  man  places  a  piece  of 
quenched  charcoal  close  to  a  piece  that  is  burning,  either  the 
quenched  charcoal  will  quench  the  other,  or  the  burning  char- 
coal will  light  that  which  is  quenched.  Since  then  the  dan- 
ger is  so  great,  we  must  cautiously  enter  into  such  intimacies 
with  those  of  the  common  sort,  and  remember  that  it  is  im- 
possible that  a  man  can  keep  company  with  one  who  is  cov- 
ered with  soot  without  being  partaker  of  the  soot  himself. 
For  what  will  you  do  if  a  man  speaks  about  gladiators,  about 
horses,  about  athletes,  or  what  is  worse  about  men  ?  Such  a 
person  is  bad,  such  a  person  is  good :  this  was  well  done,  this 
was  done  badly.  Further,  if  he  scofif,  or  ridicule,  or  show  an 
ill-natured  disposition  ?  Is  any  man  among  us  prepared  like 
a  lute-player  when  he  takes  a  lute,  so  that  as  soon  as  he  has 
touched  the  strings,  he  discovers  which  are  discordant,  and 
tunes  the  instrument?  such  a  power  as  Socrates  had  who 
in  all  his  social  intercourse  could  lead  his  companions  to  his 
own  purpose  ?  How  should  you  have  this  power  ?  It  is  there- 
fore a  necessary  consequence  that  you  are  carried  about  by 
the  common  kind  of  people. 

Why  then  are  they  more  powerful  than  you?  Because 
they  utter  these  useless  words  from  their  real  opinions: 
but  you  utter  your  elegant  words  only  from  your,  lips ;  for 
this  reason  they  are  without  strength  and  dead,  and  it  is 
nauseous  to  listen  to  your  exhortations  and  your  miserable 
virtue,  which  is  talked  of  every  where  (up  and  down).  In 
this  way  the  vulgar  have  the  advantage  over  you :  for  every 
opinion  {S6y/xa)  is  strong  and  invincible.  Until  then  the 
good  (Ko/iipai)  sentiments  (vTtoXT^eti)  are  fixed  in  you,  and 
you  shall  have  acquired  a  certain  power  for  your  security,  I 

236 


DISCOURSES  237 

advise  you  to  be  careful  in  your  association  with  common 
persons :  if  you  are  not,  every  day  like  wax  in  the  sun  there 
will  be  melted  away  whatever  you  inscribe  on  your  minds  in 
the  school.  Withdraw  then  yourselves  far  from  the  sun  so 
long  as  you  have  these  waxen  sentiments.  For  this  reason 
also  philosophers  advise  men  to  leave  their  native  country, 
because  ancient  habits  distract  them  and  do  not  allow  a  be- 
ginning to  be  made  of  a  different  habit ;  nor  can  we  tolerate 
those  who  meet  us  and  say :  "See  such  a  one  is  now  a  philoso- 
pher, who  was  once  so  and  so."  Thus  also  physicians  send 
those  who  have  lingering  diseases  to  a  different  country  and 
a  different  air;  and  they  do  right.  Do  you  also  introduce 
other  habits  than  those  which  you  have:  fix  your  opinions 
and  exercise  yourselves  in  them.  But  you  do  not  so :  you  go 
hence  to  a  spectacle,  to  a  show  of  gladiators,  to  a  place  of 
exercise  (^vo-tov),  to  a  circus;  then  you  come  back  later, 
and  again  from  this  place  you  go  to  those  places,  and  still  the 
same  persons.  And  there  is  no  pleasing  (good)  habit,  nor 
attention,  nor  care  about  self  and  observation  of  this  kind. 
How  shall  I  use  the  appearances  presented  to  me  ?  according 
to  nature,  or  contrary  to  nature  ?  how  do  I  answer  to  them  ? 
as  I  ought,  or  as  I  ought  not?  Do  I  say  to  those  things 
which  are  independent  of  the  will,  that  they  do  not  concern 
me?  For  if  you  are  not  yet  in  this  state,  fly  from  your 
former  habits,  fly  from  the  common  sort,  if  you  intend  ever 
to  begin  to  be  something. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

OF   PROVIDENCE 

WHEN  you  make  any  charge  against  Providence, 
consider,  and  you  will  learn  that  the  thing  has 
happened  according  to  reason, — Yes,  but  the  un- 
just man  has  the  advantage. — In  what? — In 
money. — Yes,  for  he  is  superior  to  you  in  this,  that  he  flat- 
ters, is  free  from  shame,  and  is  watchful.  What  is  the  won- 
der? But  see  if  he  has  the  advantage  over  you  in  being 
faithful,  in  being  modest :  for  you  will  not  find  it  to  be  so ; 
but  wherein  you  are  superior,  there  you  will  find  that  you 
have  the  advantage.  And  I  once  said  to  a  man  who  was 
vexed  because  Philostorgus  was  fortunate:  Would  you 
choose  to  lie  with  Sura  ?^  "May  it  never  happen,"  he  replied, 
"that  this  day  should  come?"  Why  then  are  you  vexed,  if  he 
receives  something  in  return  for  that  which  he  sells;  or  how 
can  you  consider  him  happy  who  acquires  those  things  by 
such  means  as  you  abominate;  or  what  wrong  does  Provi- 
dence, if  he  gives  the  better  things  to  the  better  men  ?  Is  it 
not  better  to  be  modest  than  to  be  rich  ? — He  admitted  this — 
Why  are  you  vexed  then,  man,  when  you  possess  the  better 
thing?  Remember  then  always  and  have  in  readiness  the 
truth,  that  this  is  a  law  of  nature,  that  the  superior  has  an 
advantage  over  the  inferior  in  that  in  which  he  is  superior; 
and  you  will  never  be  vexed. 

But  my  wife  treats  me  badly. — Well,  if  any  man  asks  you 
what  this  is,  say,  my  wife  treats  me  badly — Is  there  then 
nothing  more?  Nothing. — My  father  gives  me  nothing — 
[What  is  this?  my  father  gives  me  nothing — Is  there  noth- 
ing else  then  ? — Nothing]  :  but  to  say  that  this  is  an  evil  is 
something  which  must  be  added  to  it  externally,  and  falsely 
added.  For  this  reason  we  must  not  get  rid  of  poverty,  but 
of  the  opinion  about  poverty,  and  then  we  shall  be  happy. 

NOTE 

^  Upton  suggests  that  Sura  may  be  Palfurius  (Juvenal,  iv.  53),  or 
Palfurius  Sura  (Suetonius,  Domitian,  c  13). 

238 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

•       THAT  WE  OUGHT  NOT  TO  BE  DISTURBED  BY  ANY  NEWS  j 

WHEN  any  thing  shall  be  reported  to  you  which  is  of 
a  nature  to  disturb,  have  this  principle  in  read- 
iness, that  the  news  is  about  nothing  which  is 
within  the  power  of  your  will.  Can  any  man  re- 
port to  you  that  you  have  formed  a  bad  opinion,  or  had  a  bad 
desire?  By  no  means.  But  perhaps  he  will  report  that 
some  person  is  dead.  What  then  is  that  to  you  ?  He  may 
report  that  some  person  speaks  ill  of  you.  What  then  is  that 
to  you  ?  Or  that  your  father  is  planning  something  or  other. 
Against  whom?  Against  your  will  (itpoatpsa-t?)  ?  How 
can  he  ?  But  is  it  against  your  poor  body,  against  your  lit- 
tle property  ?  You  are  quite  safe :  it  is  not  against  you.  But 
the  judge  declares  that  you  have  committed  an  act  of  im- 
piety. And  did  not  the  judges  (Sitcaarat)  make  the  same 
declaration  against  Socrates  ?  Does  it  concern  you  that  the 
judge  has  made  this  declaration?  No.  Why  then  do  you 
trouble  yourself  any  longer  about  it?  Your  father  has  a 
certain  duty,  and  if  he  shall  not  fulfill  it,  he  loses  the  char- 
acter of  a  father,  of  a  man  of  natural  affection,  of  gentleness. 
Do  not  wish  him  to  lose  any  thing  else  on  this  account.  For 
never  does  a  man  do  wrong  in  one  thing,  and  suffer  in  an- 
other. On  the  other  side  it  is  your  duty  to  make  your  de- 
fence firmly,  modestly,  without  anger:  but  if  you  do  not, 
you  also  lose  the  character  of  a  son,  of  a  man  of  modest  be- 
haviour, of  generous  character.  Well  then,  is  the  judge  free 
from  danger?  No;  but  he  also  is  in  equal  danger.  Why 
then  are  you  still  afraid  of  his  decision  ?  What  have  you  to 
do  with  that  which  is  another  man's  evil?  It  is  your  own 
evil  to  make  a  bad  defence:  be  on  your  guard  against  this 
only.  But  to  be  condemned  or  not  to  be  condemned,  as  that 
is  the  act  of  another  person,  so  it  is  the  evil  of  another  per- 
son, A  certain  person  threatens  you.  Me?  No.  He 
blames  you.  Let  him  see  how  he  manages  his  own  affairs. 
He  is  going  to  condemn  you  unjustly.  He  is  a  wretched 
man. 

239 


CHAPTER  XIX 

WHAT  IS  THE  CONDITION  OF  A  COMMON  KIND  OF  MAN  AND 
OF  A  PHILOSOPHER 

THE  first  difference  between  a  common  person  (iSKhriji ) 
and  a  philosopher  is  this :  the  common  person  says, 
"Woe  to  me  for  my  little  child,  for  my  brother,  for 
my  father."^  The  philosopher,  if  he  shall  ever  be 
compelled  to  say.  Woe  to  me,  stops  and  says,  "but 
for  myself."  For  nothing  which  is  independent  of 
the  will  can  hinder  or  damage  the  will,  and  the 
will  can  only  hinder  or  damage  itself.  If  then  we 
ourselves  incline  in  this  direction,  so  as,  when  we 
are  unlucky,  to  blame  ourselves  and  to  remember 
that  nothing  else  is  the  cause  of  perturbation  or  loss  of  tran- 
quillity except  our  own  opinion,  I  swear  to  you  by  all  the 
gods  that  we  have  made  progress.  But  in  the  present  state 
of  affairs  we  have  gone  another  way  from  the  beginning. 
For  example,  while  we  were  still  children,  the  nurse,  if  we 
ever  stumbled  through  want  of  care,  did  not  chide  us,  but 
would  beat  the  stone.  But  what  did  the  stone  do  ?  Ought 
the  stone  to  have  moved  on  account  of  your  child's  folly? 
Again,  if  we  find  nothing  to  eat  on  coming  out  of  the  bath, 
the  pedagogue  never  checks  our  appetite,  but  he  flogs  the 
cook,  Man,  did  we  make  you  the  pedagogue  of  the  cook 
and  not  of  the  child  ?  Correct  the  child,  improve  him.  In 
this  way  even  when  we  are  grown  up  we  are  like  children. 
For  he  who  is  unmusical  is  a  child  in  music ;  he  who  is  with- 
out letters  is  a  child  in  learning:  he  who  is  untaught,  is  a 
child  in  life. 

NOTE 

*■  Compare  iii :  5,  4. 


240 


CHAPTER  XX 

THAT    WE   CAN     DERIVE     ADVANTAGE   FROM    ALL   EXTERNAL 

THINGS 

IN  the  case  of  appearances  which  are  objects  of  the  vision,* 
nearly  all  have  allowed  the  good  and  the  evil  to  be  in 
ourselves,  and  not  in  externals.  No  one  gives  the  name 
of  good  to  the  fact  that  it  is  day,  nor  bad  to  the  fact 
that  it  is  night,  nor  the  name  of  the  greatest  evil  to  the  opin- 
ion that  three  are  four.  But  what  do  men  say?  They  say 
that  knowledge  is  good,  and  that  error  is  bad ;  so  that  even 
in  respect  to  falsehood  itself  there  is  a  good  result,  the 
knowledge  that  it  is  falsehood.  So  it  ought  to  be  in  life 
also.  Is  health  a  good  thing,  and  is  sickness  a  bad  thing? 
No,  man.  But  what  is  it  ?  To  be  healthy,  and  healthy  in  a 
right  way,  is  good :  to  be  healthy  in  a  bad  way  is  bad ;  so  that 
it  is  possible  to  gain  advantage  even  from  sickness,  I  declare. 
For  is  it  not  possible  to  gain  advantage  even  from  death, 
and  is  it  not  possible  to  gain  advantage  from  mutilation  ? 
Do  you  think  that  Menceceus  gained  little  by  death  ?^  Could 
a  man  who  says  so,  gain  so  much  as  Menceceus  gained? 
Come,  man,  did  he  not  maintain  the  character  of  being  a 
lover  of  his  country,  a  man  of  great  mind,  faithful,  gener- 
ous? And  if  he  had  continued  to  live,  would  he  not  have 
lost  all  these  things  ?  would  he  not  have  gained  the  opposite  ? 
would  he  not  have  gained  the  name  of  coward,  ignoble,  a 
hater  of  his  country,  a  man  who  feared  death?  Well,  do 
you  think  that  he  gained  little  by  dying?  I  suppose  not. 
But  did  the  father  of  Admetus'  gain  much  by  prolonging  his 
life  so  ignobly  and  miserably?  Did  he  not  die  afterwards? 
Cease,  I  adjure  you  by  the  gods,  to  admire  material  things. 
Cease  to  make  yourselves,  slaves,  first  of  things,  then  on  ac- 
count of  things  slaves  of  those  who  are  able  to  give  them  or 
take  them  away. 

Can  advantage  then  be  derived  from  these  things  ?  From 
all ;  and  from  him  who  abuses  you.  Wherein  does  the  man 
who  exercises  before  the  combat  profit  the  athlete?   Very 

241 


242  EPICTETUS 

greatly.  This  man  becomes  my  exerciser  before  the  com- 
bat :  he  exercises  me  in  endurance,  in  keeping  my  temper,  in 
mildness.  You  say  no:  but  he,  who  lays  hold  of  my  neck 
and  disciplines  my  loins  and  shoulders,  does  me  good;  and 
the  exercise  master  (the  aliptes,  or  oiler)  does  right  when  he 
says,  "Raise  him  up  with  both  hands;"  and  the  heavier  he 
(iKeivoi)  is,  so  much  the  more  is  my  advantage.  But  if  a 
man  exercises  me  in  keeping  my  temper,  does  he  not  do  me 
good  ? — This  is  not  knowing  how  to  gain  an  advantage  from 
men.  Is  my  neighbour  bad  ?  Bad  to  himself,  but  good  to 
me:  he  exercises  my  good  disposition,  my  moderation.  Is 
my  father  bad  ?  Bad  to  himself,  but  to  me  good.  This  is 
the  rod  of  Hermes:  touch  with  it  what  you  please,  as  the 
saying  is,  and  it  will  be  of  gold.  I  say  not  so:  but  bring 
what  you  please,  and  I  will  make  it  good.*  Bring  disease, 
bring  death,  bring  poverty,  bring  abuse,  bring  trial  on  cap- 
ital charges:  all  these  things  through  the  rod  of  Hermes 
shall  be  made  profitable.  What  will  you  do  with  death? 
Why,  what  else  than  that  it  shall  do  you  honour,  or  that  it 
shall  show  you  by  act  through  it,  what  a  man  is  who  follows 
the  will  of  nature  ?  What  will  you  do  with  disease  ?  I  will 
show  its  nature,  I  will  be  conspicuous  in  it,  I  will  be  firm, 
I  will  be  happy,  I  will  not  flatter  the  physician,  I  will  not 
wish  to  die.  What  else  do  you  seek  ?  Whatever  you  shall 
give  me,  I  will  make  it  happy,  fortunate,  honoured,  a  thing 
which  a  man  shall  seek. 

You  say  "No :  but  take  care  that  you  do  not  fall  sick :  it  is 
a  bad  thing."  This  is  the  same  as  if  you  should  say,  "Take 
care  that  you  never  receive  the  impression  (appearance)  that 
three  are  four :  that  is  bad."  Man,  how  is  it  bad  ?  If  I  think 
about  it  as  I  ought,  how  shall  it  then  do  me  any  damage? 
and  shall  it  not  even  do  me  good?  If  then  I  think  about 
poverty  as  I  ought  to  do,  about  disease,  about  not  having 
office,  is  not  that  enough  for  me?  will  it  not  be  an  advan- 
iage?  How  then  ought  I  any  longer  to  look  to  seek  evil  and 
good  in  externals?  What  happens?  these  doctrines  are 
maintained  here,  but  no  man  carries  them  away  home;  but 
immediately  every  one  is  at  war  with  his  slave,  with  his 
neighbours,  with  those  who  have  sneered  at  him,  with  those 


DISCOURSES  243 

who  have  ridiculed  him.     Good  luck  to  Lesbius,*  who  daily- 
proves  that  I  know  nothing. 


*The  original  is  ^BooprjrtKobv  (pavradtSbv  which  is  translated  in 
the  Latin  version  visa  theoretica,  but  this  does  not  help  us.  Perhaps 
the  author  means  any  appearances  which  are  presented  to  us  either  by 
the  eyes  or  by  the  understanding ;  but  I  am  not  sure  what  he  means. 

*  Menoeceus,  the  son  of  Creon,  gave  up  his  life  by  which  he  would 
save  his  country,  as  it  was  declared  by  an  oracle.  (Cicero,  Tuscul.  i.  c 
48.)    Juvenal  (Sat.  xiv.  238)  says 

"Quarum  Amor  in  te 
Quantus  erat  patriae  Deciorum  in  pectore  ;  quantum 
Dilexit  Thebas,  si  Graecia  vera,  Menceceus." 

Euripides,  Phcenissae,  v.  913. 

*The  father  of  Admetus  was  Pheres  ( Euripides, Alcestis). 

*  Mrs.  Carter  quotes  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  (viii.  28)  :  "and  we 
know  that  all  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God" ; 
but  she  quotes  only  the  first  part  of  the  verse  and  omits  the  conclusion, 
"to  them  who  are  the  called  according  to  his  purpose." 

'  Some  abusive  fellow,  known  to  some  of  the  hearers  of  Epictetus. 
We  ought  perhaps  to  understand  the  words  as  if  it  were  said,  "  each  of 
you  ought  to  say  to  himself,  Good  luck  to  Lesbius,  etc."  Schweig's  note. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

AGAINST  THOSE  WHO  READILY  COME  TO  THE  PROFESSION  OF 

SOPHISTS 

THEY  who  have  taken  up  bare  theorems  {Beoop^/iara) 
immediately  wish  to  vomit  them  forth,  as  persons 
whose  stomachs  are  diseased  do  with  food.  First  di- 
gest the  thing,  then  do  not  vomit  it  up  thus :  if  you 
do  not  digest  it,  the  thing  becomes  truly  an  emetic,  a  crude 
food  and  unfit  to  eat.  But  after  digestion  show  us  some 
change  in  your  ruling  faculty,  as  athletes  show  in  their  shoul- 
ders by  what  they  have  been  exercised  and  what  they  have 
eaten ;  as  those  who  have  taken  up  certain  arts  show  by  what 
they  have  learned.  The  carpenter  does  not  come  and  say, 
Hear  me  talk  about  the  carpenter's  art;  but  having  under- 
taken to  build  a  house,  he  makes  it,  and  proves  that  he  knows 
the  art.  You  also  ought  to  do  something  of  the  kind ;  eat 
like  a  man,  drink  like  a  man,  dress,  marry,  beget  children, 
do  the  office  of  a  citizen,  endure  abuse,  bear  with  an  unrea- 
sonable brother,  bear  with  your  father,  bear  with  your  son, 
neighbour,  companion.^  Show  us  these  things  that  we  may 
see  that  you  have  in  truth  learned  something  from  the  phi- 
losophers. You  say.  No;  but  come  and  hear  me  read  (phil- 
osophical) commentaries.  Go  away,  and  seek  somebody 
to  vomit  them  on.  (He  replies)  And  indeed  I  will  expound 
to  you  the  writings  of  Chrysippus  as  no  other  man  can :  I 
will  explain  his  text  most  clearly:  I  will  add  also,  if  I  can, 
the  vehemence  of  Antipater  and  Archedemus.^ 

Is  it  then  for  this  that  young  men  shall  leave  their  coun- 
try and  their  parents,  that  they  may  come  to  this  place,  and 
hear  you  explain  words?  Ought  they  not  to  return  with  a 
capacity  to  endure,  to  be  active  in  association  with  others, 
free  from  passions,  free  from  perturbation,  with  such  a  pro- 
vision for  the  journey  of  life  with  which  they  shall  be  able 
to  bear  well  the  things  that  happen  and  derive  honour  from 
them?^  And  how  can  you  give  them  any  of  these  things 
which  you  do  not  possess  ?     Have  you  done  from  the  begin- 

244 


DISCOURSES  245 

ning  any  thing  else  than  employ  yourself  about  the  resolu- 
tion of  syllogisms,  of  sophistical  arguments  (ozyweraTr/Trrovrc?), 
and  in  those  which  work  by  questions  ?  But  such  a  man  has 
a  school;  why  should  not  I  also  have  a  school?  These 
things  are  not  done,  man,  in  a  careless  way,  nor  just  as  it 
may  happen;  but  there  must  be  a  (fit)  age  and  life,  and  God 
as  a  guide.  You  say,  No.  But  no  man  sails  from  a  port 
without  having  sacrificed  to  the  gods  and  invoked  their  help ; 
nor  do  men  sow  without  having  called  on  Demeter ;  and  shall 
a  man  who  has  undertaken  so  great  a  work  undertake  it 
safely  without  the  gods  ?  and  shall  they  who  undertake  this 
work  come  to  it  with  success?  What  else  are  you  doing, 
man,  than  divulging  the  mysteries?  You  say,  there  is  a 
temple  at  Eleusis,  and  one  here  also.  There  is  an  Hiero- 
phant  at  Eleusis,*  and  I  also  will  make  an  Hierophant :  there 
is  a  herald,  and  I  will  establish  a  herald :  there  is  a  torch- 
bearer  at  Eleusis,  and  I  also  will  establish  a  torchbearer ; 
there  are  torches  at  Eleusis,  and  I  will  have  torches  here. 
The  words  are  the  same :  how  do  the  things  done  here  differ 
from  those  done  there  ? — Most  impious  man,  is  there  no  dif- 
ference? these  things  are  done  both  in  due  place  and  in  due 
time;  and  when  accompanied  with  sacrifice  and  prayers, 
when  a  man  is  first  purified,  and  when  he  is  disposed  in  his 
mind  to  the  thought  that  he  is  going  to  approach  sacred  rites 
and  ancient  rites.  In  this  way  the  mysteries  are  useful,  in 
this  way  we  come  to  the  notion  that  all  these  things  were 
established  by  the  ancients  for  the  instruction  and  correction 
of  life.  But  you  publish  and  divulge  them  out  of  time,  out 
of  place,  without  sacrifices,  without  purity;  you  have  not 
the  garments  which  the  hierophant  ought  to  have,  nor  the 
hair,  nor  the  headdress,  nor  the  voice,  nor  the  age ;  nor  have 
you  purified  yourself  as  he  has :  but  you  have  committed  to 
memory  the  words  only,  and  you  say,  Sacred  are  the  words 
by  themselves.'' 

You  ought  to  approach  these  matters  in  another  way :  the 
thing  is  great,  it  is  mystical,  not  a  common  thing,  nor  is  it 
given  to  every  man.  But  not  even  wisdom*  perhaps  is 
enough  to  enable  a  man  to  take  the  care  of  youths :  a  man 
must  have  also  a  certain  readiness  and  fitness  for  this  pur- 
pose, and  a  certain  quality  of  body,  and  above  all  things  he 


246  [  EPICTETUS 

must  have  God  to  advise  him  to  occupy  this  office,  as  God 
advised  Socrates  to  occupy  the  place  of  one  who  confutes 
error,  Diogenes  the  office  of  royalty  and  reproof,  and  the 
office  of  teaching  precepts.  But  you  open  a  doctor's  shop, 
though  you  have  nothing  except  physic :  but  where  and  how 
they  should  be  applied,  you  know  not  nor  have  you  taken 
any  trouble  about  it.  "See,"  that  man  says,  "I  too  have 
salves  for  the  eyes."  Have  you  also  the  power  of  using 
them  ?  Do  you  know  both  when  and  how  they  will  do  good, 
and  to  whom  they  will  do  good?  Why  then  do  you  act  at 
hazard  in  things  of  the  greatest  importance?  why  are  you 
careless  ?  why  do  you  undertake  a  thing  that  is  in  no  way  fit 
for  you  ?  Leave  it  to  those  who  are  able  to  do  it,  and  to  do  it 
well.  Do  not  yourself  bring  disgrace  on  philosophy  through 
your  own  acts,  and  be  not  one  of  those  who  load  it  with  a  bad 
reputation.  But  if  theorems  please  you,  sit  still,  and  turn 
them  over  by  yourself ;  but  never  say  that  you  are  a  philoso- 
pher, nor  allow  another  to  say  it :  but  say :  '*He  is  mistaken, 
for  neither  are  my  desires  different  from  what  they  were 
before,  nor  is  my  activity  directed  to  other  objects,  nor  do  I 
assent  to  other  things,  nor  in  the  use  of  appearances  have  I 
altered  at  all  from  my  former  condition."  This  you  must 
think  and  say  about  yourself,  if  you  would  think  as  you 
ought :  if  not  act  at  hazard,  and  do  what  you  are  doing ;  for 
it  becomes  you. 

NOTES 

*  The  practical  teaching  of  the  Stoics  is  contained  in  iii.  c.  7,  and  it 
is  good  and  wise.  A  modern  writer  says  of  modern  practice :  "If  we 
open  our  eyes  and  if  we  will  honestly  acknowledge  to  ourselves  what 
we  discover,  we  shall  be  compelled  to  confess  that  all  the  life  and  ef- 
forts of  the  civilized  people  of  our  times  is  founded  on  a  view  of  the 
world,  which  is  directly  opposed  to  the  view  of  the  world  which  Jesus 
had"  (Strauss,  "  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glaube."  p.  74). 

*  Cicero  ( Academ.  Prior,  ii.  47)  names  Antipater  and  Archidemus 
(Archedemus)  the  chief  of  dialecticians,  and  also  opiniosissimi  homi- 
nes. 

*This  passage  is  one  of  those  which  show  the  great  good  sense  of 
Epictetus  in  the  matter  of  education;  and  some  other  remarks  to  the 
same  effect  follow  in  this  chapter.  A  man  might  justly  say  that  we 
have  no  clear  notion  of  the  purpose  of  education.  A  modern  writer, 
who  seems  to  belong  to  the  school  of  Epictetus  says  :  "  it  can  not  be  de- 
nied that  in  all  schools  of  all  kinds  it  ought  to  be  the  first  and  the  chief 
object  to  make  children  healthy,  good,  honest,  and,  if  possible,  sensible 
men  and  women ;  and  if  this  is  not  done  in  a  reasonable  degree,  I  main- 
tain that  the  education  of  these  schools  is  good  for  nothing — I  do  not 


DISCOURSES  247 

propose  to  make  children  good  and  honest  and  wise  by  precepts  and 
dogmas  and  preaching,  as  you  will  see.  They  must  be  made  good  and 
wise  by  a  cultivation  of  the  understanding,  by  the  practice  of  the  disci- 
pline necessary  for  that  purpose,  and  by  the  example  of  him  who  gov- 
erns, directs  and  instructs."  Further,  "my  men  and  women  teachers 
have  something  which  the  others  have  not :  they  have  a  purpose,  an  end 
in  their  system  of  education ;  and  what  is  education  ?  What  is  human 
life  without  some  purpose  or  end  which  may  be  attained  by  industry, 
order  and  the  exercise  of  moderate  abilities?  Great  abilities  are  rare, 
and  they  are  often  accompanied  by  qualities  which  make  the  abilities 
useless  to  him  who  has  them,  and  even  injurious  to  society." 

*  There  was  a  great  temple  of  Demeter  (Ceres)  at  Eleusis  in  Attica, 
and  solemn  mysteries,  and  an  Hierophant  or  conductor  of  the  cere- 
monies. 

*  The  reader,  who  has  an  inclination  to  compare  religious  forms  an- 
cient and  modern,  may  find  something  in  modem  practice  to  which  the 
words  of  Epictetus  are  applicable. 

*  This  is  a  view  of  the  fitness  of  a  teacher  which,  as  far  as  I  know,  is 
quite  new ;  and  it  is  also  true.  Perhaps  there  was  some  vague  notion  of 
this  kind  in  modern  Europe  at  the  time  when  teachers  of  youths  were 
only  priests,  and  when  it  was  supposed  that  their  fitness  for  the  office 
of  teacher  was  secured  by  their  fitness  for  the  office  of  priest.  In  the 
present  "ordering  of  Deacons"  in  the  Church  of  England,  the  person, 
who  is  proposed  as  a  fit  person  to  be  a  deacon,  is  asked  the  following 
question  by  the  bishop :  "Do  you  trust  that  you  are  inwardly  moved  by 
the  Holy  Ghost  to  take  upon  you  this  office  and  ministration  to  serve 
God  for  the  promotion  of  his  glory  and  the  edifying  of  his  people?"  "In 
the  ordering  of  priests"  this  question  is  omitted,  and  another  question 
only  is  put,  which  is  used  only  in  the  ordering  of  Deacons:  "Do  you 
think  in  your  heart  that  you  be  truly  called,  according  to  the  will  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  etc.  The  teacher  ought  to  have  God  to  advise 
him  to  occupy  the  office  of  teacher,  as  Epictetus  says.  He  does  not  say 
how  God  will  advise ;  perhaps  he  supposed  that  this  advice  might  be 
given  in  the  way  in  which  Socrates  said  that  he  received  it. 

"Wisdom  perhaps  is  not  enough"  to  enable  a  man  to  take  care  of 
youths.  Whatever  wisdom  may  mean,  it  is  true  that  a  teacher  should 
have  a  fitness  and  liking  for  the  business.  If  he  has  not,  he  will  find  it 
disagreeable,  and  he  will  not  do  it  well.  He  may  and  ought  to  gain  a 
reasonable  living  by  his  labour:  if  he  seeks  only  money  and  wealth,  he 
is  on  the  wrong  track,  and  he  is  only  like  a  common  dealer  in  buying 
and  selling,  a  butcher  or  a  shoemaker,  or  a  tailor,  all  useful  members  of 
society  and  all  of  them  necessary  in  their  several  kinds.  But  the  teacher 
has  a  priestly  office,  the  making,  as  far  as  it  is  possible,  children  into 
good  men  and  women.  Should  he  be  ordered  like  a  Deacon  or  a  Priest, 
for  his  office  is  even  more  useful  than  that  of  a  Priest  or  Deacon?  Some 
will  say  that  this  is  ridiculous.    Perhaps  the  wise  will  not  think  so. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

ABOUT  CYNICISM 

WHEN  one  of  his  pupils  inquired  of  Epictetus,  and 
he  was  a  person  who  appeared  to  be  inclined  to 
C)micism,  what  kind  of  a  person  a  Cynic  ought  to 
be  and  what  was  the  notion  {icpo^rjxlm)  of  the 
thing,  we  will  inquire,  said  Epictetus,  at  leisure :  but  I  have 
so  much  to  say  to  you  that  he  who  without  God  attempts 
so  great  a  matter,  is  hateful  to  God,  and  has  other  purpose 
than  to  act  indecently  in  public.  For  in  any  well-managed 
house  no  man  comes  forward,  and  says  to  himself,  I  ought 
to  be  manager  of  the  house.  If  he  does  so,  the  master  turns 
round,  and  seeing  him  insolently  giving  orders,  drags  him 
forth  and  flogs  him.  So  it  is  also  in  this  great  city  (the 
world)  ;  for  here  also  there  is  a  master  of  the  house  who 
orders  every  thing.  (He  says)  You  are  the  sun ;  you  can  by 
going  round  make  the  year  and  seasons,  and  make  the  fruits 
grow  and  nourish  them,  and  stir  the  winds  and  make  them 
remit,  and  warm  the  bodies  of  men  properly:  go,  travel 
round,  and  so  administer  things  from  the  greatest  to  the 
least.  You  are  a  calf;  when  a  lion  shall  appear,  do  your 
proper  business  {i.  e.  run  away)  :  if  you  do  not,  you  will  suf- 
fer. You  are  a  bull :  advance  and  fight,  for  this  is  your 
business,  and  becomes  you,  and  you  can  do  it.  You  can  lead 
the  army  against  Ilium :  be  Agamemnon.  You  can  fight  in 
single  combat  against  Hector :  be  Achilles.  But  if  Thersites^ 
came  forward  and  claimed  the  command,  he  would  either  not 
have  obtained  it;  or  if  he  did  obtain  it,  he  would  have  dis- 
graced himself  before  many  witnesses. 

Do  you  also  think  about  the  matter  carefully:  it  is  not 
what  it  seems  to  you.  (You  say)  I  wear  a  cloak  now  and 
I  shall  wear  it  then:  I  sleep  hard  now,  and  I  shall  sleep 
hard  then :  I  will  take  in  addition  a  little  bag  now  and  a  staff, 
and  I  will  go  about  and  begin  to  beg  and  to  abuse  those 
whom  I  meet ;  and  if  I  see  any  man  plucking  the  hair  out  of 
his  body,  I  will  rebuke  him,  or  if  he  has  dressed  his  hair,  or 

248 


DISCOURSES  249 

if  he  walks  about  in  purple — If  you  imagine  the  thing  to  be 
such  as  this,  keep  far  away  from  it :  do  not  approach  it :  it  is 
not  at  all  for  you.  But  if  you  imagine  it  to  be  what  it  is, 
and  do  not  think  yourself  to  be  unfit  for  it,  consider  what  a 
great  thing  you  undertake. 

In  the  first  place  in  the  things  which  relate  to  yourself,  you 
must  not  be  in  any  respect  like  what  you  are  now :  you  must 
not  blame  God  or  man :  you  must  take  away  desire  alto- 
gether, you  must  transfer  avoidance  {eKKXt6ii)  only  to  the 
things  which  are  within  the  power  of  the  will :  you  must  not 
feel  anger  nor  resentment  nor  envy  nor  pity ;  a  girl  must  not 
appear  handsome  to  you,  nor  must  you  love  a  little  reputa- 
tion, nor  be  pleased  with  a  boy  or  a  cake.  For  you  ought 
to  know  that  the  rest  of  men  throw  walls  around  them  and 
houses  and  darkness  when  they  do  any  such  things,  and  they 
have  many  means  of  concealment.  A  man  shuts  the  door, 
he  sets  somebody  before  the  chamber :  if  a  person  comes,  say 
that  he  is  out,  he  is  not  at  leisure.  But  the  Cynic  instead  of 
all  these  things  must  use  modesty  as  his  protection:  if  he 
does  not,  he  will  be  indecent  in  his  nakedness  and  under  the 
open  sky.  This  is  his  house,  his  door :  this  is  the  slave  be- 
fore his  bedchamber:  this  is  his  darkness.  For  he  ought 
not  to  wish  to  hide  any  thing  that  he  does :  and  if  he  does, 
he  is  gone,  he  has  lost  the  character  of  a  Cynic,  of  a  man 
who  lives  under  the  open  sky,  of  a  free  man :  he  has  begun 
to  fear  some  external  thing,  he  has  begun  to  have  need  of 
concealment,  nor  can  he  get  concealment  when  he  chooses. 
For  where  shall  he  hide  himself  and  how?  And  if  by 
chance  this  public  instructor  shall  be  detected,  this  peda- 
gogue, what  kind  of  things  will  he  be  compelled  to  suffer? 
When  then  a  man  fears  these  things,  is  it  possible  for  him 
to  be  bold  with  his  whole  soul  to  superintend  men  ?  It  can 
not  be:  it  is  impossible. 

In  the  first  place  then  you  must  make  your  ruling  faculty 
pure,  and  this  mode  of  life  also.  Now  (you  should  say), 
to  me  the  matter  to  work  on  is  my  understanding,  as  wood 
is  to  the  carpenter,  as  hides  to  the  shoemaker ;  and  my  busi- 
ness is  the  right  use  of  appearances.  But  the  body  is  noth- 
ing to  me :  the  parts  of  it  are  nothing  to  me.  Death  ?  Let 
it  come  when  it  chooses,  either  death  of  the  whole  or  of  a 


250 


EPICTETUS 


part.  Fly,  you  say.  And  whither;  can  any  man  eject  me 
out  of  the  world  ?  He  can  not.  But  wherever  I  go,  there  is 
the  sun,  there  is  the  moon,  there  are  the  stars,  dreams,  omens, 
and  the  conversation  {omsUo)  with  gods. 

Then,  if  he  is  thus  prepared,  the  true  Cynic  can  not  be  sat- 
isfied with  this ;  but  he  must  know  that  he  is  sent  a  messen- 
ger from  Zeus  to  men  about  good  and  bad  things,^  to  show 
them  that  they  have  wandered  and  are  seeking  the  substance 
of  good  and  evil  where  it  is  not,  but  where  it  is,  they  never 
think;  and  that  he  is  a  spy,  as  Diogenes  was  carried  off  to 
Philip  after  the  battle  of  Chaeroneia  as  a  spy.  For  in  fact  a 
Cynic  is  a  spy  of  the  things  which  are  good  for  men  and 
which  are  evil,  and  it  is  his  duty  to  examine  carefully  and 
to  come  and  report  truly,  and  not  to  be  struck  with  terror  so 
as  to  point  out  as  enemies  those  who  are  not  enemies,  nor 
in  any  other  way  to  be  perturbed  by  appearances  nor  con- 
founded. 

It  is  his  duty  then  to  be  able  with  a  loud  voice,  if  the  occa- 
sion should  arise,  and  appearing  on  the  tragic  stage  to  say 
like  Socrates :  Men,  whither  are  you  hurrying ;  what  are  you 
doing,  wretches  ?  like  blind  people  you  are  wandering  up  and 
down :  you  are  going  by  another  road,  and  have  left  the  true 
road :  you  seek  for  prosperity  and  happiness  where  they  are 
not,  and  if  another  shows  you  where  they  are,  you  do  not 
believe  him.  Why  do  you  seek  it  without  ?^  In  the  body  ? 
It  is  not  there.  If  you  doubt,  look  at  Myro,  look  at  Ophel- 
lius.*  In  possessions  ?  It  is  not  there.  But  if  you  do  not 
believe  me,  look  at  Croesus :  look  at  those  who  are  now  rich, 
with  what  lamentations  their  life  is  filled.  In  power?  It 
is  not  there.  If  it  is,  those  must  be  happy  who  have  been 
twice  and  thrice  consuls ;  but  they  are  not.  Whom  shall  we 
believe  in  these  matters?  You  who  from  without  see  their 
affairs  and  are  dazzled  by  an  appearance,  or  the  men  them- 
selves? What  do  they  say?  Hear  them  when  they  groan, 
when  they  grieve,  when  on  account  of  these  very  consul- 
ships and  glory  and  splendour  they  think  that  they  are  more 
wretched  and  in  greater  danger.  Is  it  in  royal  power?  It 
is  not :  if  it  were,  Nero  would  have  been  happy,  and  Sarda- 
napalus.     But  neither  was  Agamemnon  happy,  though  he 


DISCOURSES  251 

was  a  better  man  than  Sardanapalus  and  Nero;  but  while 
others  are  snoring,  what  is  he  doing? 

"  Much  from  his  head  he  tore  his  rooted  hair :" 

Iliad,  x:  15. 


and  what  does  he  say  himself? 

'  I  am  perple: 
Disturb'd  I  a 
Is  leaping.' " 


" '  I  am  perplexed,'  he  says,  'and 
Disturb'd  I  am,'  and  'my  heart  out  of  my  bosom 

Iliad,  x:  91. 


Wretch,  which  of  your  affairs  goes  badly?  Your  posses- 
sions ?  No.  Your  body  ?  No.  But  you  are  rich  in  gold 
and  copper.  What  then  is  the  matter  with  you  ?  That  part 
of  you,  whatever  it  is,  has  been  neglected  by  you  and  is  cor- 
rupted, the  part  with  which  we  desire,  with  which  we  avoid, 
with  which  we  move  towards  and  move  from  things.  How 
neglected  ?  He  knows  not  the  nature  of  good  for  which  he 
is  made  by  nature  and  the  nature  of  evil;  and  what  is  his 
own,  and  what  belongs  to  another ;  and  when  any  thing  that 
belongs  to  others  goes  badly,  he  says,  "Woe  to  me,  for  the 
Hellenes  are  in  danger."  Wretched  is  his  ruling  faculty, 
and  alone  neglected  and  uncared  for.  The  Hellenes  are  going 
to  die  destroyed  by  the  Trojans.  And  if  the  Trojans  do 
not  kill  them,  will  they  not  die?  Yes;  but  not  all  at  once. 
What  difference  then  does  it  make?  For  if  death  is  an 
evil,  whether  men  die  altogether,  or  if  they  die  singly,  it  is 
equally  an  evil.  Is  any  thing  else  then  going  to  happen  than 
the  separation  of  the  soul  and  the  body  ?*  Nothing.  And  if 
the  Hellenes  perish,  is  the  door  closed,  and  is  it  not  in  your 
power  to  die?  It  is.  Why  then  do  you  lament  and  say, 
"Oh,  you  who  are  a  king  and  have  the  sceptre  of  Zeus !" 
An  unhappy  king  does  not  exist  more  than  an  unhappy  god. 
What  then  art  thou  ?  In  truth  a  shepherd :  for  you  weep  as 
shepherds  do,  when  a  wolf  has  carried  off  one  of  their  sheep : 
and  these  who  are  governed  by  you  are  sheep.  And  why 
did  you  come  hither  ?  Was  your  desire  in  any  danger  ?  was 
your  aversion  (eKKXidti)  ?  was  your  movement  (pursuits)  ? 
was  your  avoidance  of  things?  He  replies,  "No;  but  the 
wife  of  my  brother  was  carried  off."    Was  it  not  then  a  great 


252  EPICTETUS 

gain  to  be  deprived  of  an  adulterous  wife?  "Shall  we  be  de- 
spised then  by  the  Trojans?"  What  kind  of  people  are  the 
Trojans,  wise  or  foolish?  If  they  are  wise,  why  do  you  fight 
with  them  ?  If  they  are  fools,  why  do  you  care  about  them  ? 
In  what  then  is  the  good,  since  it  is  not  in  these  things? 
Tell  us,  you  who  are  lord,  messenger  and  spy.  Where  you 
do  not  think  that  it  is,  nor  choose  to  seek  it :  for  if  you  chose 
to  seek  it,  you  would  have  found  it  to  be  in  yourselves ;  nor 
would  you  be  wandering  out  of  the  way,  nor  seeking  what 
belongs  to  others  as  if  it  were  your  own.  Turn  your 
thoughts  into  yourselves :  observe  the  preconceptions  which 
you  have.  What  kind  of  a  thing  do  you  imagine  the  good 
to  be?  That  which  flows  easily,  that  which  is  happy,  that 
which  is  not  impeded.  Come,  and  do  you  not  naturally 
imagine  it  to  be  great,  do  you  not  imagine  it  to  be  valuable? 
do  you  not  imagine  it  to  be  free  from  harm  ?  In  what  ma- 
terial then  ought  you  to  seek  for  that  which  flows  easily,  for 
that  which  is  not  impeded?  in  that  which  serves  or  in  that 
which  is  free?  In  that  which  is  free.  Do  you  possess  the 
body  then  free  or  is  it  in  servile  condition?  We  do  not 
know.  Do  you  not  know  that  it  is  the  slave  of  fever,  of 
gout,  ophthalmia,  dysentery,  of  a  tyrant,  of  fire,  of  iron,  of 
every  thing  which  is  stronger?  Yes,  it  is  a  slave.  How 
then  is  it  possible  that  any  thing  which  belongs  to  the  body 
can  be  free  from  hindrance  ?  and  how  is  a  thing  great  or  val- 
uable which  is  naturally  dead,  or  earth,  or  mud  ?  Well  then, 
do  you  possess  nothing  which  is  free?  Perhaps  nothing. 
And  who  is  able  to  compel  you  to  assent  to  that  which  ap- 
pears false?  No  man.  And  who  can  compel  you  not  to 
assent  to  that  which  appears  true?  No  man.  By  this  then 
you  see  that  there  is  something  in  you  naturally  free.  But 
to  desire  or  to  be  averse  from,  or  to  move  towards  an  object 
or  to  move  from  it,  or  to  prepare  yourself,  or  to  propose 
to  do  anything,  which  of  you  can  do  this,  unless  he  has  re- 
ceived an  impression  of  the  appearance  of  that  which  is  pro- 
fitable or  a  duty  ?  No  man.  You  have  then  in  these  things 
also  something  which  is  not  hindered  and  is  free.  Wretched 
men,  work  out  this,  take  care  of  this,  seek  for  good  here. 

And  how  is  it  possible  that  a  man  who  has  nothing,  who 
is  naked,  houseless,  without  a  hearth,  squalid,  without  a 


DISCOURSES  253 

slave,  without  a  city,  can  pass  a  life  that  flows  easily  ?  See, 
God  has  sent  you  a  man  to  show  you  that  it  is  possible.® 
Look  at  me,  who  am  without  a  city,  without  a  house,  with- 
out possessions,  without  a  slave;  I  sleep  on  the  ground;  I 
have  no  wife,  no  children,  no  praetorium,  but  only  the  earth 
and  heavens,  and  one  poor  cloak.  And  what  do  I  want? 
Am  I  not  without  sorrow?  am  I  not  without  fear?  Am  I 
not  free?  When  did  any  of  you  see  me  failing  in  the  object 
of  my  desire  ?  or  ever  falling  into  that  which  I  would  avoid  ? 
did  I  ever  blame  God  or  man?'^  did  I  ever  accuse  any  man? 
did  any  of  you  ever  see  me  with  sorrowful  countenance? 
And  how  do  I  meet  with  those  you  are  afraid  of  and  admire  ? 
Do  not  I  treat  them  like  slaves?  Who,  when  he  sees  me, 
does  not  think  that  he  sees  his  king  and  master  ? 

This  is  the  language  of  the  Cynics,  this  their  character, 
this  is  their  purpose.  You  say  No :  but  their  characteristic 
is  the  little  wallet,  and  staff,  and  great  jaws :  the  devouring 
of  all  that  you  give  them,  or  storing  it  up,  or  the  abusing  un- 
reasonably all  whom  they  meet,  or  displaying  their  shoulder 
as  a  fine  thing. — Do  you  see  how  you  are  going  to  undertake 
so  great  a  business?  First  take  a  mirror:  look  at  your 
shoulders :  observe  your  loins,  your  thighs.  You  are  going, 
my  man,  to  be  enrolled  as  a  combatant  in  the  Olympic  games, 
no  frigid  and  miserable  contest.  In  the  Olympic  games  a 
man  is  not  permitted  to  be  conquered  only  and  to  take  his  de- 
parture ;  but  first  he  must  be  disgraced  in  the  sight  of  all  the 
world,  not  in  the  sight  of  Athenians  only,  or  of  Lacedae- 
monians or  of  Nicopolitans ;  next  he  must  be  whipped  also 
if  he  has  entered  into  the  contests  rashly;  and  before  being 
whipped,  he  must  suffer  thirst  and  heat,  and  swallow  much 
dust. 

Reflect  more  carefully,  know  thyself,®  consult  the  divinity, 
without  God  attempt  nothing;  for  if  he  shall  advise  you  (to 
do  this  or  anything),  be  assured  that  he  intends  you  to  be- 
come great  or  to  receive  many  blows.  For  this  very  amusing 
quality  is  conjoined  to  a  C)niic :  he  must  be  flogged  like  an 
ass,  and  when  he  is  flogged,  he  must  love  those  who  flog  him, 
as  if  he  were  the  father  of  all,  and  the  brother  of  all.® — 
You  say  No ;  but  if  a  man  flogs  you,  stand  in  the  public  place 
and  call  out,  "Caesar,  what  do  I  suffer  in  this  state  of  peace 


254 


EPICTETUS 


under  thy  protection?"  Let  us  bring  the  offender  before 
the  proconsul. — But  what  is  Caesar  to  a  Cynic,  or  what  is  a 
proconsul  or  what  is  any  other  except  him  who  sent  the 
Cynic  down  hither,  and  whom  he  serves,  namely  Zeus? 
Does  he  call  upon  any  other  than  Zeus  ?  Is  he  not  convinced 
that  whatever  he  suffers,  it  is  Zeus  who  is  exercising  him? 
Hercules  when  he  was  exercised  by  Eurystheus  did  not  think 
that  he  was  wretched,  but  without  hesitation  he  attempted 
to  execute  all  that  he  had  in  hand.  And  is  he  who  is 
trained  to  the  contest  and  exercised  by  Zeus  going  to  call  out 
and  to  be  vexed,  he  who  is  worthy  to  bear  the  sceptre  of 
Diogenes  ?  Hear  what  Diogenes  says  to  the  passers  by  when 
he  is  in  a  fever.  "Miserable  wretches,  will  you  not  stay  ?  but 
are  you  going  so  long  a  journey  to  Olympia  to  see  the  des- 
truction or  the  fight  of  athletes ;  and  will  you  not  choose 
to  see  the  combat  between  a  fever  and  a  man?"  Would 
such  a  man  accuse  God  who  sent  him  down  as  if  God  were 
treating  him  unworthily,  a  man  who  gloried  in  his  circum- 
stances, and  claimed  to  be  an  example  to  those  who  were 
passing  by?  For  what  shall  he  accuse  him  of?  because  he 
maintains  a  decency  of  behaviour,  because  he  displays  his 
virtue  more  conspicuously?  Well,  and  what  does  he  say 
of  poverty,  about  death,  about  pain  ?  How  did  he  compare 
his  own  happiness  with  that  of  the  great  king  (the  king  of 
Persia)  ?  or  rather  he  thought  that  there  was  no  comparison 
between  them.  For  where  there  are  perturbations,  and 
griefs,  and  fears,  and  desires  not  satisfied,  and  aversions  of 
things  which  you  can  not  avoid,  and  envies  and  jealousies, 
how  is  there  a  road  to  happiness  there?  But  where  there 
are  corrupt  principles,  there  these  things  must  of  necessity 
be. 

When  the  young  man  asked,  if  when  a  Cynic  has  fallen 
sick,  and  a  friend  asks  him  to  come  to  his  house  and  to  be 
taken  care  of  in  his  sickness,  shall  the  Cynic  accept  the  invi- 
tation, he  replied,  And  where  shall  you  find,  I  ask,  a  Cynic's 
friend  ?  For  the  man  who  invites  ought  to  be  such  another 
as  the  Cynic  that  he  may  be  worthy  of  being  reckoned  the 
Cynic's  friend.  He  ought  to  be  a  partner  in  the  Cynic's 
sceptre  and  his  royalty,  and  a  worthy  minister,  if  he  intends 


DISCOURSES  255 

to  be  considered  worthy  of  a  Cynic's  friendship,  as  Diogenes 
was  a  friend  of  Antisthenes,  as  Crates  was  a  friend  of  Diog^ 
enes.  Do  you  think  that  if  a  man  comes  to  a  Cynic  and 
salutes  him,  that  he  is  the  Cynic's  friend,  and  that  the  Cynic 
will  think  him  worthy  of  receiving  a  Cynic  into  his  house? 
So  that  if  you  please,  reflect  on  this  also :  rather  look  round 
for  some  convenient  dunghill  on  which  you  shall  bear  your 
fever  and  which  will  shelter  you  from  the  north  wind  that 
you  may  not  be  chilled.  But  you  seem  to  me  to  wish  to  go 
into  some  man's  house  and  to  be  well  fed  there  for  a  time. 
Why  then  do  you  think  of  attempting  so  great  a  thing  (as 
the  life  of  a  Cynic)  ? 

But,  said  the  young  man,  shall  marriage  and  the  procrea- 
tion of  children  as  a  chief  duty  be  undertaken  by  the  Cynic  ?^^ 
If  you  grant  me  a  community  of  wise  men,  Epictetus  replies 
perhaps  no  man  will  readily  apply  himself  to  the  Cynic  prac- 
tice. For  on  whose  account  should  he  undertake  this  man- 
ner of  life?  However  if  we  suppose  that  he  does,  nothing 
will  prevent  him  from  marrying  and  begetting  children ;  for 
his  wife  will  be  another  like  himself,  and  his  father-in-law 
another  like  himself,  and  his  children  will  be  brought  up 
like  himself.  But  in  the  present  state  of  things  which  is  like 
that  of  an  army  placed  in  battle  order,  is  it  not  fit  that  the 
Cynic  should  without  any  distraction  be  employed  only  on 
the  ministration  of  God,^^  able  to  go  about  among  men,  not 
tied  down  to  the  common  duties  of  mankind,  nor  entangled 
in  the  ordinary  relations  of  life,  which  if  he  neglects,  he  will 
not  maintain  the  character  of  an  honourable  and  good  man  ? 
and  if  he  observes  them  he  will  lose  the  character  of  the 
messenger,  and  spy  and  herald  of  God.  For  consider  that 
it  is  his  duty  to  do  something  towards  his  father-in-law,* 
something  to  the  other  kinsfolks  of  his  wife,  something  to 
his  wife  also  (if  he  has  one).  He  is  also  excluded  by  being 
a  Cynic  from  looking  after  the  sickness  of  his  own  family, 
and  from  providing  for  their  support.  And  to  say  nothing 
of  the  rest,  he  must  have  a  vessel  for  heating  water  for  the 
child  that  he  may  wash  it  in  the  bath ;  wool  for  his  wife  when 
she  is  delivered  of  a  child,  oil,  a  bed,  a  cup :  so  the  furniture 
of  the  house  is  increased.     I  say  nothing  of  his  other  occupa- 


256  EPICTETUS 

tions,  and  of  his  distraction.  Where  then  now  is  that  king, 
he  who  devotes  himself  to  the  pubHc  interests, 

"  The  people's  guardian  and  so  full  of  cares." 

Homer,  Iliad  ii  :  25 

whose  duty  it  is  to  look  after  others,  the  married  and  those 
who  have  children ;  to  see  who  uses  his  wife  well,  who  uses 
her  badly;  who  quarrels;  what  family  is  well  administered, 
what  is  not;  going  about  as  a  physician  does  and  feels 
pulses?  He  says  to  one,  you  have  a  fever,  to  another  you 
have  a  head-ache,  or  the  gout :  he  says  to  one,  abstain  from 
food ;  to  another  he  says,  eat ;  or  do  not  use  the  bath ;  to  an- 
other, you  require  the  knife,  or  the  cautery.  How  can  he 
have  time  for  this  who  is  tied  to  the  duties  of  common  life? 
is  it  not  his  duty  to  supply  clothing  to  his  children,  and  to 
send  them  to  the  schoolmaster  with  writing  tablets,  and 
styles  (for  writing).  Besides  must  he  not  supply  them  with 
beds  ?  for  they  can  not  be  genuine  Cynics  as  soon  as  they  are 
born.  If  he  does  not  do  this,  it  would  be  better  to  expose 
the  children  as  soon  as  they  are  born  than  to  kill  them  in 
this  way.  Consider  what  we  are  bringing  the  Cynic  down 
to,  how  we  are  taking  his  royalty  from  him. — Yes,  but 
Crates  took  a  wife. — You  are  speaking  of  a  circumstance 
which  arose  from  love  and  of  a  woman  who  was  another 
Crates. ^^  But  we  are  inquiring  about  ordinary  marriages 
and  those  which  are  free  from  distractions,  and  making  this 
inquiry  we  do  not  find  the  affair  of  marriage  in  this  state 
of  the  world  a  thing  which  is  especially  suited  to  the  Cynic. 

How  then  shall  a  man  maintain  the  existence  of  society? 
In  the  name  of  God,  are  those  men  greater  benefactors  to 
society  who  introduce  into  the  world  to  occupy  their  own 
places  two  or  three  grunting  children,  or  those  who  superin- 
tend as  far  as  they  can  all  mankind,  and  see  what  they  do, 
how  they  live,  what  they  attend  to,  what  they  neglect  con- 
trary to  their  duty  ?  Did  they  who  left  little  children  to  the 
Thebans  do  them  more  good  than  Epaminondas  who  died 
childless  ?  And  did  Priamus  who  begat  fifty  worthless  sons 
or  Danaus  or  vEolus  contribute  more  to  the  community  than 
Homer  ?  Then  shall  the  duty  of  a  general  or  the  business  of 
a  writer  exclude  a  man  from  marriage  or  the  begetting  of 


DISCOURSES  257 

children,  and  such  a  man  shall  not  be  judged  to  have  accepted 
the  condition  of  childlessness  for  nothing;  and  shall  not  the 
royalty  of  a  Cynic  be  considered  an  equivalent  for  the  want 
of  children  ?  Do  we  not  perceive  his  grandeur  and  do  we 
not  justly  contemplate  the  character  of  Diogenes;  and  do 
we  instead  of  this  turn  our  eyes  to  the  present  Cynics  who 
are  dogs  that  wait  at  tables,  and  in  no  respect  imitate  the 
Cynics  of  old  except  perchance  in  breaking  wind,  but  in  noth- 
ing else?  For  such  matters  would  not  have  moved  us  at  all 
nor  should  we  have  wondered  if  a  Cynic  should  not  marry  or 
beget  children.  Man,  the  Cynic  is  the  father  of  all  men;  the 
men  are  his  sons,  the  women  are  his  daughters :  he  so  care- 
fully visits  all,  so  well  does  he  care  for  all.  Do  you  think 
that  it  is  from  idle  impertinence  that  he  rebukes  those  whom 
he  meets?  He  does  it  as  a  father,  as  a  brother,  and  as  the 
minister  of  the  father  of  all,  the  minister  of  Zeus. 

If  you  please,  ask  me  also  if  a  Cynic  shall  engage  in  the 
administration  of  the  state.  Fool,  do  you  seek  a  greater 
form  of  administration  than  that  in  which  he  is  engaged? 
Do  you  ask  if  he  shall  appear  among  the  Athenians  and 
say  something  about  the  revenues  and  the  supplies,  he  who 
must  talk  with  all  men,  alike  with  Athenians,  alike  with 
Corinthians,  alike  with  Romans,  not  about  supplies,  nor  yet 
about  revenues,  nor  about  peace  or  war,  but  about  happiness 
and  unhappiness,  about  good  fortune  and  bad  fortune,  about 
slavery  and  freedom?  When  a  man  has  undertaken  the 
administration  of  such  a  state,  do  you  ask  me  if  he  shall  en- 
gage in  the  administration  of  a  state  ?  ask  me  also  if  he  shall 
govern  (hold  a  magisterial  ofifice)  :  again  I  will  say  to  you, 
Fool,  what  greater  government  shall  he  exercise  than  that 
which  he  exercises  now? 

It  is  necessary  also  for  such  a  man  (the  Cynic)  to  have  a 
certain  habit  of  body :  for  if  he  appears  to  be  consumptive, 
thin  and  pale,  his  testimony  has  not  then  the  same  weight. 
For  he  must  not  only  by  showing  the  qualities  of  the  soul 
prove  to  the  vulgar  that  it  is  in  his  power  independent  of  the 
things  which  they  admire  to  be  a  good  man,  but  he  must 
also  show  by  his  body  that  his  simple  and  frugal  way  of 
living  in  the  open  air  does  not  injure  even  the  body.  See, 
he  says,  I  am  proof  of  this,  and  my  own  body  also  is.  So 
17 


258  EPICTETUS 

Diogenes  used  to  do,  for  he  used  to  go  about  fresh  looking, 
and  he  attracted  the  notice  of  the  many  by  his  personal  ap- 
pearance. But  if  a  Cynic  is  an  object  of  compassion,  he 
seems  to  be  a  beggar:  all  persons  turn  away  from  him,  all 
are  offended  with  him;  for  neither  ought  he  to  appear 
dirty  so  that  he  shall  not  also  in  this  respect  drive  away  men ; 
but  his  very  roughness  ought  to  be  glean  and  attractive. 

There  ought  also  to  belong  to  the  Cynic  much  natural 
grace  and  sharpness ;  and  if  this  is  not  so,  he  is  a  stupid  fel- 
low, and  nothing  else :  and  he  must  have  these  qualities  that 
he  may  be  able  readily  and  fitly  to  be  a  match  for  all  circum- 
stances that  may  happen.  So  Diogenes  replied  to  one  who 
said,  "Are  you  the  Diogenes  who  does  not  believe  that  there 
are  gods?"^^  "And  how,"  repHed  Diogenes,  "can  this  be 
when  I  think  that  you  are  odious  to  the  gods  ?"  On  another 
occasion  in  reply  to  Alexander,  who  stood  by  him  when  he 
was  sleeping,  and  quoted  Homer's  line  (Iliad,  ii.  24) 

"  A  man  a  councillor  should  not  sleep  all  night," 

he  answered,  when  he  was  half  asleep, 

"  The  people's  guardian  and  so  full  of  cares." 

But  before  all  the  Cynic's  ruling  faculty  must  be  purer 
than  the  sun ;  and  if  it  is  not,  he  must  necessarily  be  a  cun- 
ning knave  and  a  fellow  of  no  principle,  since  while  he  him- 
self is  entangled  in  some  vice  he  will  reprove  others.^*  For 
see  how  the  matter  stands :  to  these  kings  and  tyrants  their 
guards  and  arms  give  the  power  of  reproving  some  persons, 
and  of  being  able  even  to  punish  those  who  do  wrong  though 
they  are  themselves  bad ;  but  to  a  Cynic  instead  of  arms  and 
guards  it  is  conscience  (rd  dwetSoi)  which  gives  this  power. 
When  he  knows  that  he  has  watched  and  laboured  for  man- 
kind, and  has  slept  pure,  and  sleep  has  left  him  still  purer, 
and  that  he  thought  whatever  he  has  thought  as  a  friend  of 
the  gods,  as  a  minister,  as  a  participator  of  the  power  of 
Zeus,  and  that  on  all  occasions  he  is  ready  to  say 

"  Lead  me,  O  Zeus,  and  thou,  O  Destiny  ;  " 

and  also,  If  so  it  pleases  the  gods,  so  let  it  be ;   why  should 


DISCOURSES  259 

he  not  have  confidence  to  speak  freely  to  his  own  brothers, 
to  his  children,  in  a  word  to  his  kinsmen?  For  this  reason 
he  is  neither  over  curious  nor  a  busybody  when  he  is  in  this 
state  of  mind;  for  he  is  not  a  meddler  with  the  affairs  of 
others  when  he  is  superintending  human  affairs,  but  he  is 
looking  after  his  own  aflfairs.  If  tliat  is  not  so,  you  may  also 
say  that  the  general  is  a  busybody,  when  he  inspects  his  sol- 
diers, and  examines  them  and  watches  them  and  punishes 
the  disorderly.  But  if  while  you  have  a  cake  under  your 
arm,  you  rebuke  others,  I  will  say  to  you,  "Will  you  not 
rather  go  away  into  a  corner  and  eat  that  which  you  have 
stolen ;  what  have  you  to  do  with  the  affairs  of  others  ?  For 
who  are  you  ?  are  you  the  bull  of  the  herd,  or  the  queen  of 
the  bees?  Show  me  the  tokens  of  your  supremacy,  such  as 
they  have  from  nature.  But  if  you  are  a  drone  claiming  the 
sovereignty  over  the  bees,  do  you  not  suppose  that  your  fel- 
low citizens  will  put  you  down  as  the  bees  do  the  drones?" 
The  Cynic  also  ought  to  have  such  power  of  endurance  as 
to  seem  insensible  to  the  common  sort,  and  a  stone :  no  man 
reviles  him,  no  man  strikes  him,  no  man  insults  him,  but  he 
gives  his  body  that  any  man  who  chooses  may  do  with  it 
what  he  likes.  For  he  bears  in  mind  that  the  inferior  must 
be  overpowered  by  the  superior  in  that  in  which  it  is  inferior ; 
and  the  body  is  inferior  to  the  many,  the  weaker  to  the 
stronger.  He  never  then  descends  into  such  a  contest  in 
which  he  can  be  overpowered ;  but  he  immediately  withdraws 
from  things  which  belong  to  others,  he  claims  not  the  things 
which  are  servile.  But  where  there  is  will  and  the  use  of 
appearances,  there  you  will  see  how  many  eyes  he  has  so  that 
you  may  say,  "  Argus  was  blind  compared  with  him."  Is  his 
assent  ever  hasty,  his  movement  (towards  an  object)  rash, 
does  his  desire  ever  fail  in  its  object,  does  that  which  he 
would  avoid  befall  him,  is  his  purpose  unaccomplished,  does 
he  ever  find  fault,  is  he  ever  humiliated,  is  he  ever  envious? 
To  these  he  directs  all  his  attention  and  energy;  but  as  to 
every  thing  else  he  snores  supine.  All  is  peace;  there  is  no 
robber  who  takes  away  his  will,  ^*  no  tyrant.  But  what  say 
you  as  to  his  body  ?  I  say  there  is.  And  his  possessions  ?  I 
say  there  is.  And  as  to  magistracies  and  honours? — What 
does  he  care  for  them? — When  then  any  person  would 


26o  EPICTETUS 

frighten  him  through  them,  he  says  to  him,  "Begone,  look 
for  children;  masks  are  formidable  to  them;  but  I  know 
that  they  are  made  of  shell,  and  have  nothing  inside." 

About  such  a  matter  as  this  you  are  deliberating.  There- 
fore, if  you  please,  I  urge  you  in  God's  name,  defer  the  mat- 
ter, and  first  consider  your  preparation  for  it.  For  see  what 
Hector  says  to  Andromache,  "Retire  rather,"  he  says,  "into 
the  house  and  weave :  " 

"  'War  is  the  work  of  men 
Of  all  indeed,  but  specially  'tis  mine.'  " 

Iliad,  vi.  490. 

So  he  was  conscious  of  his  own  qualification,  and  knew  her 
weakness. 

NOTES 

^  See  the  description  of  Thersites  in  the  Iliad,  ii.  212. 
'  The  office  which  in  our  times  corresponds  to  this  description  of  the 
Cynic,  is  the  office  of  a  teacher  of  religion. 

"  _         _  "Quod  petis  hie  est. 

Est  Ulubris,  animus  si  te  non  deficit  sequus." 

Horace,  Ep.  i.  11,  30. 

"  Willst  du  immer  weiter  schweif en  ? 
Sieh,  das  Gute  liegt  so  nah. 
Lerne  nur  das  Gliick  ergreifen, 
Denn  das  Cluck  ist  immer  da." 

Goethe. 

*  These  men  are  supposed  to  have  been  strong  gladiators.  Croesus 
the  rich  king  of  Lydia,  who  was  taken  prisoner  by  Cyrus  the  Persian. 

'  Man  then  is  supposed  to  consist  of  a  soul  and  of  a  body.  It  may  be 
useful  to  remember  this  when  we  are  examining  other  passages  in 
Epictetus. 

'"It  is  observable  that  Epictetus  seems  to  think  it  a  necessary  qualifi- 
cation in  a  teacher  sent  from  God  for  the  instruction  of  mankind  to  be 
destitute  of  all  external  advantages  and  a  suffering  character.  Thus 
doth  this  excellent  man,  who  had  carried  human  reason  to  so  great  a 
height,  bear  testimony  to  the  propriety  of  that  method  which  the  divine 
wisdom  hath  thought  fit  to  follow  in  the  scheme  of  the  Gospel ;  whose 
great  author  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head;  and  which  some  in  later 
ages  have  inconsiderately  urged  as  an  argument  against  the  Christian 
religion.  The  infinite  disparity  between  the  proposal  of  the  example  of 
Diogenes  in  Epictetus  and  of  our  Redeemer  in  the  New  Testament  is 
too  obvious  to  need  any  enlargement."     Mrs.  Carter. 

'  Some  of  the  ancients,  who  called  themselves  philosophers,  did 
blame  God  and  his  administration  of  the  world ;  and  there^  are  men 
who  do  the  same  now.  If  a  man  is  dissatisfied  with  the  condition  of  the 
world,  he  has  the  power  of  going  out  of  it,  as  Epictetus  often  says; 


DISCOURSES  261 

and  if  he  knows,  as  he  must  know,  that  he  can  not  alter  the  nature  of 
man  and  the  conditions  of  human  Hfe,  he  may  think  it  wise  to  withdraw 
from  a  state  of  things  with  which  he  is  not  satisfied.  If  he  believes  that 
there  is  no  God,  he  is  at  liberty  to  do  what  he  thinks  best  for  himself; 
and  if  he  does  believe  that  there  is  a  God  he  may  still  think  that  his 
power  of  quitting  the  world  is  a  power  which  he  may  exercise  when  he 
chooses.  Many  persons  commit  suicide,  not  because  they  are  dissatisfied 
with  the  state  of  the  world,  but  for  other  reasons.  I  have  not  yet  heard 
of  a  modern  philosopher  who  found  fault  with  the  condition  of  human 
things,  and  voluntarily  retired  from  life.  Our  philosophers  live  as  long 
as  they  can,  and  some  of  them  take  care  of  themselves  and  of  all  that 
they  possess ;  they  even  provide  well  for  the  comfort  of  those  whom 
they  leave  behind  them.  The  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  they  prefer 
living  in  this  world  to  leaving  it,  that  their  complaints  are  idle  talk ; 
and  that  being  men  of  weak  minds,  and  great  vanity  they  assume  the 
philosopher's  name,  and  while  they  try  to  make  others  as  dissatisfied  as 
they  profess  themselves  to  be,  they  are  really  enjoying  themselves  after 
their  fashion  as  much  as  they  can.  These  men,  though  they  may  have 
the  means  of  living  with  as  much  comfort  as  the  conditions  of  human 
life  permit,  are  dissatisfied,  and  they  would,  if  they  could,  make  as 
dissatisfied  as  themselves  those  who  have  less  means  of  making  life 
tolerable.  These  grumblers  are  not  the  men  who  give  their  money  or 
their  labour  or  their  lives  for  increasing  the  happiness  of  mankind  and 
diminishing  the  unavoidable  sufferings  of  human  life ;  but  they  find  it 
easier  to  blame  God,  when  they  believe  in  him ;  or  to  find  fault  with 
things  as  they  are,  which  is  more  absurd,  when  they  do  not  believe  in 
God,  and  when  they  ought  to  make  the  best  that  they  can  of  the  con- 
ditions under  which  we  live. 

'  "E  caelo  descendit  yv&Qt  deavrov"  Juvenal  xi.  27.  The  express- 
sion,  "  Know  thyself"  is  attributed  to  several  persons,  and  to  Socrates 
among  them.  Self-knowledge  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  kinds  of 
knowledge ;  and  no  man  has  it  completely.  Men  either  estimate  their 
powers  too  highly,  and  this  is  named  vanity,  self  conceit  or  arrogance ; 
or  they  think  too  meanly  of  their  powers  and  do  not  accomplish  what 
they  might  accomplish,  if  they  had  reasonable  self  confidence. 

*  Compare  this  with  the  Christian  precepts  of  forbearance  and  love 
to  enemies,  Matthew  v.  39-44.  The  reader  will  observe  that  Christ 
specifies  higher  injuries  and  provocations  than  Epictetus  doth;  and 
requires  of  all  his  followers,  what  Epictetus  describes  only  as  the  duty 
of  one  or  two  extraordinary  persons,  as  such." — Mrs.  Carter. 

*  The  Stoics  recommended  marriage,  the  procreation  of  children,  the 
discharge  of  magisterial  offices,  and  the  duties  of  social  life  generally. 

^'''It  is  remarkable  that  Epictetus  here  uses  the  same  word  (axept- 
ditddrooi )  with  St.  Paul,  i  Cor.  vii.  35,  and  urges  the  same  considera- 
tion, of  applying  wholly  to  the  service  of  God,  to  dissuade  from  mar- 
riage. His  observation  too  that  the  state  of  things  was  then  {^dj?  iv  ica' 
parapet)  like  that  of  an  army  prepared  for  battle,  nearly  resembles  the 
Apostle's  (ivsdT&da  ovdyKrj) present  necessity.  St.  Paul  says  2  Tim. 
ii.  4  {ovdEl^  drpavEvofiBvoi;  kfiitXEKErai.  etc.)  "no  man  that  warreth 
entangleth  himself  with  the  affairs  of  life."  So  Epictetus  says  here  that 
a  Cynic  must  not  be  (  kfiitsfiXeyfievov)  in  relations,  etc.  From  these 
and  many  other  passages  of  Epictetus  one  would  be  inclined  to  think 
that  he  was  not  unacquainted  with  St.  Paul's  Epistles  or  that  he  had 
heard  something  of  the  Christian  doctrine."     Mrs.  Carter. 

I  do  not  find  any  evidence  of  Epictetus  being  acquainted  with  the 


262  EPICTETUS 

Epistles  of  Paul.  It  is  possible  that  he  had  heard  something  of  the 
Christian  doctrine,  but  I  have  not  observed  any  evidence  of  the  fact. 
Epictetus  and  Paul  have  not  the  same  opinion  about  marriage,  for  Paul 
says  that  "  if  they  can  not  contain  let  them  marry  :  for  it  is  better  to 
marry  than  to  burn."  Accordingly  his  doctrine  is  "to  avoid  fornication 
let  every  man  have  his  own  wife,  and  let  every  woman  have  her  own 
husband."  He  does  not  directly  say  what  a  man  should  do  when  he  is 
not  able  to  maintain  a  wife;  but  the  inference  is  plain  what  he  will  do 
(l  Cor.  vii.  2).  Paul's  view  of  marriage  differs  from  that  of  Epictetus, 
who  recommends  marriage.  Paul  does  not  :  he  writes,  "  I  say  therefore 
to  the  unmarried  and  widows,  it  is  good  for  them  if  they  abide  even 
as  I."  He  does  not  acknowledge  marriage  and  the  begetting  of  children 
as  a  duty  ;  which  Epicetus  did. 

In  the  present  condition  of  the  world  Epictetus  says  that  the  minister 
of  God  should  not  marry,  because  the  cares  of  a  family  would  distract 
him  and  make  him  unable  to  discharge  his  duties  There  is  sound  sense 
in  this.  A  minister  of  God  should  not  be  distracted  by  the  cares  of  a 
family,  especially  if  he  is  poor. 

"  The  wife  of  Crates  was  Hipparchia,  who  persisted  against  all  ad- 
vice in  marrying  Crates  and  lived  with  him  exactly  as  he  lived.  Dioge- 
nes Laertius,  vi.  96.   Upton. 

"Diogenes  Laertius,  vi :  42. 

"  The  Cynic  is  in  Epictetus  the  minister  of  religion.  He  must  be  pure, 
for  otherwise  how  can  he  reprove  vice?  This  is  a  useful  lesson  to  those 
whose  business  it  is  to  correct  the  vices  of  mankind. 

"This  is  quoted  by  M.  Antoninus,  xi.  36. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

TO  THOSE  WHO  READ  AND  DISCUSS  FOR  THE  SAKE  OF 
OSTENTATION^ 

FIRST  say  to  yourself  who  you  wish  to  be:  then  do 
accordingly  what  you  are  doing;  for  in  nearly  all 
other  things  we  see  this  to  be  so.  Those  who  fol- 
low athletic  exercises  first  determine  what  they  wish 
to  be,  then  they  do  accordingly  what  follows.  If  a  man  is 
a  runner  in  the  long  course,  there  is  a  certain  kind  of  diet,  of 
walking,  rubbing,  and  exercise:  if  a  man  is  a  runner  in  the 
stadium,  all  these  things  are  different ;  if  he  is  a  Pentathlete, 
they  are  still  more  different.  So  you  will  find  it  also  in  the 
arts.  If  you  are  a  carpenter,  you  will  have  such,  and  such 
things ;  if  a  worker  in  metal,  such  things.  For  everything  that 
we  do,  if  we  refer  it  to  no  end,  we  shall  do  it  to  no  purpose ; 
and  if  we  refer  it  to  the  wrong  end,  we  shall  miss  the  mark. 
Further,  there  is  a  general  end  or  purpose,  and  a  particular 
purpose.  First  of  all,  we  must  act  as  a  man.  What  is  com- 
prehended in  this?  We  must  not  be  like  a  sheep,  though 
gentle;  nor  mischievous,  like  a  wild  beast.  But  the  par- 
ticular end  has  reference  to  each  person's  mode  of  life  and 
his  will.  The  lute-player  acts  as  a  lute-player,  the  carpenter 
as  a  carpenter,  the  philosopher  as  a  philosopher,  the  rheto- 
rician as  a  rhetorician.  When  then  you  say,  Come  and  hear 
me  read  to  you :  take  care  first  of  all  that  you  are  not  doing 
this  without  a  purpose;  then  if  you  have  discovered  that  you 
are  doing  this  with  reference  to  a  purpose,  consider  if  it  is 
the  right  purpose.  Do  you  wish  to  do  good  or  to  be  praised  ? 
Immediately  you  hear  him  saying.  To  me  what  is  the  value  of 
praise  from  the  many  ?  and  he  says  well,  for  it  is  of  no  value 
to  a  musician,  so  far  as  he  is  a  musician,  nor  to  a  geome- 
trician. Do  you  then  wish  to  be  useful?  in  what?  tell  us 
that  we  may  run  to  your  audience  room.  Now  can  a  man 
do  anything  useful  to  others,  who  has  not  received  some- 
thing useful  himself?     No,  for  neither  can  a  man  do  any 

263 


264  EPICTETUS 

thing  useful  in  the  carpenter's  art,  unless  he  is  a  carpenter; 
nor  in  the  shoemaker's  art,  unless  he  is  a  shoemaker. 

Do  you  wish  to  know  then  if  you  have  received  any  advan- 
tage? Produce  your  opinions,  philosopher.  What  is  the 
thing  which  desire  promises?  Not  to  fail  in  the  object. 
What  does  aversion  promise?  Not  to  fall  into  that  which 
you  would  avoid.  Well ;  do  we  fulfill  their  promise  ?  Tell 
me  the  truth;  but  if  you  lie,  I  will  tell  you.  Lately  when 
your  hearers  came  together  rather  coldly,  and  did  not  give 
you  applause,  you  went  away  humbled.  Lately  again  when 
you  had  been  praised,  you  went  about  and  said  to  all,  What 
did  you  think  of  me?  Wonderful,  master,  I  swear  by  all 
that  is  dear  to  me.  But  how  did  I  treat  of  that  particular 
matter?  Which?  The  passage  in  which  I  described  Pan 
and  the  nymphs?^  Excellently.  Then  do  you  tell  me  that 
in  desire  and  in  aversion  you  are  acting  according  to  nature  ? 
Be  gone;  try  to  persuade  somebody  else.  Did  you  not 
praise  a  certain  person  contrary  to  your  opinion  ?  and  did  you 
not  flatter  a  certain  person  who  was  the  son  of  a  senator? 
Would  you  wish  your  own  children  to  be  such  persons? — I 
hope  not — Why  then  did  you  praise  and  flatter  him?  He 
is  an  ingenuous  youth  and  listens  well  to  discourses — How 
is  this? — He  admires  me.  You  have  stated  your  proof. 
Then  what  do  you  think?  do  not  these  very  people  secretly 
despise  you?  When  then  a  man  who  is  conscious  that  he 
has  neither  done  any  good  nor  ever  thinks  of  it,  finds  a  phi- 
losopher who  says,  You  have  a  great  natural  talent,  and  you 
have  a  candid  and  good  disposition,  what  else  do  you  think 
that  he  says  except  this.  This  man  has  some  need  of  me  ?  Or 
tell  me  what  act  that  indicates  a  great  mind  has  he  shown  ? 
Observe;  he  has  been  in  your  company  a  long  time;  he  has 
listened  to  your  discourses,  he  has  heard  you  reading ;  has  he 
become  more  modest  ?  has  he  been  turned  to  reflect  on  him- 
self ?  has  he  perceived  in  what  a  bad  state  he  is  ?  has  he  cast 
away  self-conceit?  does  he  look  for  a  person  to  teach  him? 
He  does.  A  man  who  will  teach  him  to  live?  No,  fool,  but 
how  to  talk ;  for  it  is  for  this  that  he  admires  you  also.  Lis- 
ten and  hear  what  he  says:  This  man  writes  with  perfect 
art,  much  better  than  Dion.^  This  is  altogether  another 
thing.     Does  he  say,  This  man  is  modest,  faithful,  free  from 


DISCOURSES  265 

perturbations  ?  and  even  if  he  did  say  it,  I  should  say  to  him, 
Since  this  man  is  faithful,  tell  me  what  this  faithful  man  is. 
And  if  he  could  not  tell  me,  I  should  add  this.  First  under- 
stand what  you  say,  and  then  speak. 

You  then,  who  are  in  a  wretched  plight  and  gaping  after 
applause  and  counting  your  auditors,  do  you  intend  to  be 
useful  to  others? — To-day  many  more  attended  my  dis- 
course. Yes,  many;  we  suppose  five  hundred.  That  is 
nothing;  suppose  that  there  were  a  thousand — Dion  never 
had  so  many  hearers — How  could  he? — And  they  under- 
stand what  is  said  beautifully.  What  is  fine,  master,  can 
move  even  a  stone — See,  these  are  the  words  of  a  philoso- 
pher. This  is  the  disposition  of  a  man  who  will  do  good  to 
others;  here  is  a  man  who  has  listened  to  discourses,  who 
has  read  what  is  written  about  Socrates  as  Socratic,  not  as 
the  compositions  of  Lysias  and  Isocrates.  "I  have  often 
wondered  by  what  arguments."*  Not  so,  but  "by  what  argu- 
ment" :  this  is  more  exact  than  that — What,  have  you  read 
the  words  at  all  in  a  different  way  from  that  in  which  you 
read  little  odes?  For  if  you  read  them  as  you  ought,  you 
would  not  have  been  attending  to  such  matters,  but  you 
would  rather  have  been  looking  to  these  words:  "An)^us 
and  Melitus  are  able  to  kill  me,  but  they  cannot  harm  me:" 
"and  I  am  always  of  such  a  disposition  as  to  pay  regard  to 
nothing  of  my  own  except  to  the  reason  which  on  inquiry 
seems  to  me  the  best."^  Hence  who  ever  heard  Socrates 
say,  'T  know  something  and  I  teach :"  but  he  used  to  send 
different  people  to  different  teachers.  Therefore  they  used 
to  come  to  him  and  ask  to  be  introduced  to  philosophers  by 
him ;  and  he  would  take  them  and  recommend  them. — Not 
so ;  but  as  he  accompanied  them  he  would  say.  Hear  me  to- 
day discoursing  in  the  house  of  Quadratus.®  Why  should 
I  hear  you?  Do  you  wish  to  show  me  that  you  put  words 
together  cleverly?  You  put  them  together,  man;  and  what 
good  will  it  do  you? — But  only  praise  me. — What  do  you 
mean  by  praising? — Say  to  me,  admirable,  wonderful. — 
Well,  I  say  so.  But  if  that  is  praise  whatever  it  is  which 
philosophers  mean  by  the  name  {Karr^yopiaY  of  good,  what 
have  I  to  praise  in  you?  If  it  is  good  to  speak  well,  teach 
men,  and  I  will  praise  you. — What  then  ?  ought  a  man  to  lis- 
ts 


266  EPICTETUS 

ten  to  such  things  without  pleasure? — I  hope  not.  For  my 
part  I  do  not  listen  even  to  a  lute-player  without  pleasure. 
Must  I  then  for  this  reason  stand  and  play  the  lute?  Hear 
what  Socrates  says,  "Nor  would  it  be  seemly  for  a  man  of  my 
age,  like  a  young  man  composing  addresses,  to  appear  before 
you."^  Like  a  young  man,  he  says.  For  in  truth  this  small 
art  is  an  elegant  thing,  to  select  words,  and  to  put  them  to- 
gether, and  to  come  forward  and  gracefully  to  read  them  or 
to  speak,  and  while  he  is  reading  to  say,  "There  are  not  many 
who  can  do  these  things,  I  swear  by  all  that  you  value." 

Does  a  philosopher  invite  people  to  hear  him?  As  the 
sun  himself  draws  men  to  him,  or  as  food  does,  does  not 
the  philosopher  also  draw  to  him  those  who  will  receive  ben- 
efit ?  What  physician  invites  a  man  to  be  treated  by  him  ? 
Indeed  I  now  hear  that  even  the  physicians  in  Rome  do  in- 
vite patients,  but  when  I  lived  there,  the  physicians  were  in- 
vited. "I  invite  you  to  come  and  hear  that  things  are  in  a 
bad  way  for  you,  and  that  you  are  taking  care  of  every  thing 
except  that  of  which  you  ought  to  take  care,  and  that  you  are 
ignorant  of  the  good  and  the  bad  and  are  unfortunate  and 
unhappy."  A  fine  kind  of  invitation :  and  yet  if  the  words 
of  the  philosopher  do  not  produce  this  effect  on  you,  he  is 
dead,  and  so  is  the  speaker.  Rufus  was  used  to  say :  "If  you 
have  leisure  to  praise  me,  I  am  speaking  to  no  purpose."^ 
Accordingly  he  used  to  speak  in  such  a  way  that  every  one  of 
us  who  were  sitting  there  supposed  that  some  one  had  ac- 
cused him  before  Rufus :  he  so  touched  on  what  was  doing, 
he  so  placed  before  the  eyes  every  man's  faults. 

The  philosopher's  school,  ye  men,  is  a  surgery :  you  ought 
not  to  go  out  of  it  with  pleasure,  but  with  pain.  For  you 
are  not  in  sound  health  when  you  enter :  one  has  dislocated 
his  shoulder,  another  has  an  abscess,  a  third  a  fistula,  and  a 
fourth  a  headache.  Then  do  I  sit  and  utter  to  you  little 
thoughts  and  exclamations  that  you  may  praise  me  and  go 
away,  one  with  his  shoulder  in  the  same  condition  in  which 
he  entered,  another  with  his  head  still  aching,  and  a  third 
with  his  fistula  or  his  abscess  just  as  they  were?  Is  it  for 
this  then  that  young  men  shall  quit  home,  and  leave  their 
parents  and  their  friends  and  kinsmen  and  property,  that 
they  may  say  to  you,  Wonderful!    when  you  are  uttering 


DISCOURSES  267 

your  exclamations.     Did   Socrates   do  this,   or  Zeno,   or 
Cleanthes  ? 

What  then?  is  there  not  the  hortatory  style?  Who  de- 
nies it?  as  there  is  the  style  of  refutation,  and  the  didactic 
style.  Who  then  ever  reckoned  a  fourth  style  with  these, 
the  style  of  display?  What  is  the  hortatory  style?  To  be 
able  to  show  both  to  one  person  and  to  many  the  struggle 
in  which  they  are  engaged,  and  that  they  think  more  about 
any  thing  than  about  what  they  really  wish.  For  they  wish 
the  things  which  lead  to  happiness,  but  they  look  for  them 
in  the  wrong  place.  In  order  that  this  may  be  done,  a  thou- 
sand seats  must  be  placed  and  men  must  be  invited  to  listen, 
and  you  must  ascend  the  pulpit  in  a  fine  robe  or  cloak  and 
describe  the  death  of  Achilles.  Cease,  I  intreat  you  by  the 
gods,  to  spoil  good  words  and  good  acts  as  much  as  you  can. 
Nothing  can  have  more  power  in  exhortation  than  when  the 
speaker  shows  to  the  hearers  that  he  has  need  of  them.  But 
tell  me  who  when  he  hears  you  reading  or  discoursing  is 
anxious  about  himself  or  turns  to  reflect  on  himself  ?  or  when 
he  has  gone  out  says.  The  philosopher  hit  me  well :  I  must 
no  longer  do  these  things.  But  does  he  not,  even  if  you 
have  a  great  reputation,  say  to  some  person?  He  spoke 
finely  about  Xerxes  ;*°  and  another  says,  No,  but  about  the 
battle  of  Thermopylae.     Is  this  listening  to  a  philosopher? 

NOTES 

*  Epictetus  in  an  amusing  manner  touches  on  the  practice  of  Sophists, 
Rhetoricians,  and  others,  who  made  addresses  only  to  get  praise.  This 
practice  of  reciting  prose  or  verse  compositions  was  common  in  the 
time  of  Epictetus,  as  we  may  learn  from  the  letters  of  the  younger 
Pliny,  Juvenal,  Martial,  and  the  author  of  the  treatise  de  Causis  cor- 
ruptae  eloquentiae.     Upton. 

Such  were  the  subjects  which  the  literary  men  of  the  day  delighted  in. 
'  Dion  of  Prusa  in  Bithynia  was  named  Chrysostomus  (golden- 
mouthed)  because  of  his  eloquence.  He  was  a  rhetorician  and  sophist, 
as  the  term  was  then  understood,  and  was  living  at  the  same  time  as 
Epictetus.  Eighty  of  his  orations  written  in  Greek  are  still  extant,  and 
some  fragments  of  fifteen. 

*  These  words  are  the  beginning  of  Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  i.  i. 
The  small  critics  disputed  whether  the  text  should  read  ridt  Xoyoti,  or 
Ttvt  Xoyoo. 

'  From  the  Crito  of  Plato,  c.  6. 

*  The  rich,  says  Upton,  used  to  lend  their  houses  for  recitations,  as  we 
learn  from  Pliny,  Ep.  viii.  12  and  Juvenal,  vii.  40. 

"  Si  dulcedine  famae 
Succensus  recites,  maculosas  commodat  aedes." 


268  EPICTETUS 

Quadratus  is  a  Roman  name.  There  appears  to  be  a  confusion  between 
Socrates  and  Quadratus.  The  man  says,  No.  Socrates  would  not  do 
so;  but  he  would  do,  as  a  man  might  do  now.  He  would  say  on  the 
road;  I  hope  you  will  come  to  hear  me.  I  don't  find  anything  in  the 
notes  on  this  passage;    but  it  requires  explanation. 

^  KaTTjyopia  is  one  of  Aristotle's  common  terms. 

'  From  Plato's  Apology  of  Socrates. 

•  Aulus  Gellius,  v.  i.     Seneca,  Ep.  52.     Upton. 

"  Cicero,  de  Officiis  i.  18 :  "Quae  magno  animo  et  fortiter  excellen- 
terque  gesta  sunt,  ea  pescio  quomodo  pleniore  ore  laudamus.  Hinc 
Rhetorum  campus  de  Marathone,  Salamine,  Plataeis,  Thermopylis, 
Leuctris," 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THAT  WE  OUGHT  NOT  TO  BE  MOVED  BY  A  DESIRE  FOR  THOSE 
THINGS  WHICH  ARE  NOT  IN  OUR  POWER 

LET  not  that  which  in  another  is  contrary  to  nature  be 
an  evil  to  you :  for  you  are  not  formed  by  nature  to 
be  depressed  with  others  nor  to  be  unhappy  with 
others,  but  to  be  happy  with  them.  If  a  man  is  un- 
happy, remember  that  his  unhappiness  is  his  own  fault :  for 
God  has  made  all  men  to  be  happy,  to  be  free  from  perturba- 
tions. For  this  purpose  he  has  given  means  to  them,  some 
things  to  each  person  as  his  own,  and  other  things  not  as 
his  own :  some  things  subject  to  hindrance  and  compulsion 
and  deprivation ;  and  these  things  are  not  a  man's  own :  but 
the  things  which  are  not  subject  to  hindrances,  are  his  own; 
and  the  nature  of  good  and  evil,  as  it  was  fit  to  be  done  by 
him  who  takes  care  of  us  and  protects  us  like  a  father,  he 
has  made  our  own. — But  you  say,  I  have  parted  from  a 
certain  person,  and  he  is  grieved. — Why  did  he  consider  as 
his  own  that  which  belongs  to  another  ?  why,  when  he  looked 
on  you  and  was  rejoiced,  did  he  not  also  reckon  that  you 
are  mortal,  that  it  is  natural  for  you  to  part  from  him  for 
a  foreign  country?  Therefore  he  suffers  the  consequences 
of  his  own  folly.  But  why  do  you  or  for  what  purpose  be- 
wail yourself  ?  Is  it  that  you  also  have  not  thought  of  these 
things  ?  but  like  poor  women  who  are  good  for  nothing,  you 
have  enjoyed  all  things  in  which  you  took  pleasure,  as  if 
you  would  always  enjoy  them,  both  places  and  men  and  con- 
versation; and  now  you  sit  and  weep  because  you  do  not 
see  the  same  persons  and  do  not  live  in  the  same  places. — 
Indeed  you  deserve  this,  to  be  more  wretched  than  crows  and 
ravens  who  have  the  power  of  flying  where  they  please  and 
changing  their  nests  for  others,  and  crossing  the  seas  with- 
out lamenting  or  regretting  their  former  condition. — Yes, 
but  this  happens  to  them  because  they  are  irrational  crea- 
tures.— Was  reason  then  given  to  us  by  the  gods  for  the 
purpose  of  unhappiness  and  misery,  that  we  may  pass  our 

269 


270  EPICTETUS 

lives  in  wretchedness  and  lamentation?  Must  all  persons 
be  immortal  and  must  no  man  go  abroad,  and  must  we  our- 
selves not  go  abroad,  but  remain  rooted  like  plants;  and  if 
any  of  our  familiar  friends  goes  abroad,  must  we  sit  and 
weep ;  and  on  the  contrary,  when  he  returns,  must  we  dance 
and  clap  our  hands  like  children? 

Shall  we  not  now  wean  ourselves  and  remember  what  we 
have  heard  from  the  philosophers?  if  we  did  not  listen  to 
them  as  if  they  were  jugglers :  they  tell  us  that  this  world  is 
one  city,^  and  the  substance  out  of  which  it  has  been  formed 
is  one,  and  that  there  must  be  a  certain  period,  and  that 
some  things  must  give  way  to  others,  that  some  must  be  dis- 
solved, and  others  come  in  their  place;  some  to  remain  in 
the  same  place,  and  others  to  be  moved :  and  that  all  things 
are  full  of  friendship,  first  of  the  gods,^  and  then  of  men 
who  by  nature  are  made  to  be  of  one  family ;  and  some  must 
be  with  one  another,  and  others  must  be  separated,  rejoicing 
in  those  who  are  with  them,  and  not  grieving  for  those  who 
are  removed  from  them;  and  man  in  addition  to  being  by 
nature  of  a  noble  temper  and  having  a  contempt  of  all  things 
which  are  not  in  the  power  of  his  will,  also  possesses  this 
property  not  to  be  rooted  nor  to  be  naturally  fixed  to .  the 
earth,  but  to  go  at  different  times  to  different  places,  some- 
times from  the  urgency  of  certain  occasions,  and  at  others 
merely  for  the  sake  of  seeing.  So  it  was  with  Ulysses,  who 
saw 

"Of  many  men  the  states,  and  learned  their  ways."* 

And  still  earlier  it  was  the  fortune  of  Hercules  to  visit  all 
the  inhabited  world 

"Seeing  men's  lawless  deeds  and  their  good  rules  of  law  :"* 

casting  out  and  clearing  away  their  lawlessness  and  intro- 
ducing in  their  place  good  rules  of  law.  And  yet  how  many 
friends  do  you  think  that  he  had  in  Thebes,  how  many  in 
Argos,  how  many  in  Athens?  and  how  many  do  you  think 
that  he  gained  by  going  about?  And  he  married  also,  when 
it  seemed  to  him  a  proper  occasion,  and  begot  children,  and 
left  them  without  lamenting  or  regretting  or  leaving  them 
as  orphans ;  for  he  knew  that  no  man  is  an  orphan ;  but  it  is 


DISCOURSES  271 

the  father  who  takes  care  of  all  men  always  and  continu- 
ously. For  it  was  not  as  mere  report  that  he  had  heard  that 
Zeus  is  the  father  of  men,  for  he  thought  that  Zeus  was  his 
own  father,  and  he  called  him  so,  and  to  him  he  looked  when 
he  was  doing  what  he  did.  Therefore  he  was  enabled  to 
live  happily  in  all  places.  And  it  is  never  possible  for  happi- 
ness and  desire  of  what  is  not  present  to  come  together. 
For  that  which  is  happy  must  have  alP  that  it  desires,  must 
resemble  a  person  who  is  filled  with  food,  and  must  have 
neither  thirst  nor  hunger. — But  Ulysses  felt  a  desire  for 
his  wife  and  wept  as  he  sat  on  a  rock. — Do  you  attend  to 
Homer  and  his  stories  in  every  thing  ?  Or  if  Ulysses  really 
wept,  what  was  he  else  than  an  unhappy  man?  and  what 
good  man  is  unhappy?  In  truth  the  whole  is  badly  admin- 
istered, if  Zeus  does  not  take  care  of  his  own  citizens  that 
they  may  be  happy  like  himself.  But  these  things  are  not 
lawful  or  right  to  think  of :  and  if  Ulysses  did  weep  and  la- 
ment, he  was  not  a  good  man.  For  who  is  good  if  he  knows 
not  who  he  is?  and  who  knows  what  he  is,  if  he  forgets 
that  things  which  have  been  made  are  perishable,  and  that 
it  is  not  possible  for  one  human  being  to  be  with  another 
always?  To  desire  then  things  which  are  impossible  is  to 
have  a  slavish  character,  and  is  foolish :  it  is  the  part  of 
a  stranger,  of  a  man  who  fights  against  God  in  the  only  way 
that  he  can,  by  his  opinions. 

But  my  mother  laments  when  she  does  not  see  me. — Why 
has  she  not  learned  these  principles?  and  I  do  not  say  this, 
that  we  should  not  take  care  that  she  may  not  lament,  but 
I  say  that  we  ought  not  to  desire  in  every  way  what  is  not 
our  own.  And  the  sorrow  of  another  is  another's  sorrow : 
but  my  sorrow  is  my  own.  I  then  will  stop  my  own  sorrow 
by  every  means,  for  it  is  in  my  power:  and  the  sorrow  of 
another  I  will  endeavour  to  stop  as  far  as  I  can ;  but  I  will 
not  attempt  to  do  it  by  every  means ;  for  if  I  do,  I  shall  be 
fighting  against  God,  I  shall  be  opposing  Zeus  and  shall  be 
placing  myself  against  him  in  the  administration  of  the  uni- 
verse; and  the  reward  (the  punishment)  of  this  fighting 
against  God  and  of  this  disobedience  not  only  will  the  chil- 
dren of  my  children  pay,  but  I  also  shall  myself,  both  by  day 
and  by  night,  startled  by  dreams,  perturbed,  trembling  at 


272  EPICTETUS 

every  piece  of  news,  and  having  my  tranquillity  depending 
on  the  letters  of  others. — Some  person  has  arrived  from 
Rome.  I  only  hope  that  there  is  no  harm.  But  what  harm  can 
happen  to  you,  where  you  are  not? — From  Hellas  (Greece) 
some  one  is  come:  I  hope  that  there  is  no  harm. — In  this 
way  every  place  may  be  the  cause  of  misfortune  to  you.  Is 
it  not  enough  for  you  to  be  unfortunate  there  where  you  are, 
and  must  you  be  so  even  beyond  sea,  and  by  the  report  of 
letters  ?  Is  this  the  way  in  which  your  affairs  are  in  a  state 
of  security? — Well  then  suppose  that  my  friends  have  died 
in  the  places  which  are  far  from  me. — What  else  have  they 
suffered  than  that  which  is  the  condition  of  mortals?  Or 
how  are  you  desirous  at  the  same  time  to  live  to  old  age,  and 
at  the  same  time  not  to  see  the  death  of  any  person  whom  you 
love  ?  Know  you  not  that  in  the  course  of  a  long  time  many 
and  various  kinds  of  things  must  happen ;  that  a  fever  shall 
overpower  one,  a  robber  another,  and  a  third  a  tyrant  ?  Such 
is  the  condition  around  us,  such  are  those  who  live  with  us  in 
the  world :  cold  and  heat,  and  unsuitable  ways  of  living,  and 
journeys  by  land,  and  voyages  by  sea,  and  winds,  and  various 
circumstances  which  surround  us,  destroy  one  man,  and  ban- 
ish another,  and  throw  one  upon  an  embassy  and  another  into 
an  army.  Sit  down  then  in  a  flutter  at  all  these  things,  la- 
menting, unhappy,  unfortunate,  dependent  on  another,  and 
dependent  not  on  one  or  two,  but  on  ten  thousands  upon  ten 
thousands. 

Did  you  hear  this  when  you  were  with  the  philosophers  ? 
did  you  learn  this?  do  you  not  know  that  human  life  is  a 
warfare?  that  one  man  must  keep  watch,  another  must  go 
out  as  a  spy,  and  a  third  must  fight  ?  and  it  is  not  possible 
that  all  should  be  in  one  place,  nor  is  it  better  that  it  should 
be  so.  But  you  neglecting  to  do  the  commands  of  the  gen- 
eral complain  when  any  thing  more  hard  than  usual  is  im- 
posed on  you,  and  you  do  not  observe  what  you  make  the 
army  become  as  far  as  it  is  in  your  power;  that  if  all  imitate 
you,  no  man  will  dig  a  trench,  no  man  will  put  a  rampart 
round,  nor  keep  watch,  nor  expose  himself  to  danger,  but 
will  appear  to  be  useless  for  the  purposes  of  an  army.  Again, 
in  a  vessel  if  you  go  as  a  sailor,  keep  to  one  place  and  stick 
to  it.    And  if  you  are  ordered  to  climb  the  mast,  refuse;  if 


DISCOURSES  273 

to  run  to  the  head  of  the  ship,  refuse ;  and  what  master  of  a 
ship  will  endure  you?  and  will  he  not  pitch  you  overboard 
as  a  useless  thing,  an  impediment  only  and  bad  example  to 
the  other  sailors?  And  so  it  is  here  also:  every  man's  life 
is  a  kind  of  warfare,  and  it  is  long  and  diversified.  You 
must  observe  the  duty  of  a  soldier  and  do  everything  at  the 
nod  of  the  general ;  if  it  is  possible,  divining  what  his  wishes 
are:  for  there  is  no  resemblance  between  that  general  and 
this,  neither  in  strength  nor  in  superiority  of  character.  You 
are  placed  in  a  great  office  of  command  and  not  in  any  mean 
place ;  but  you  are  always  a  senator.  Do  you  not  know  that 
such  a  man  must  give  little  time  to  the  affairs  of  his  house- 
hold, but  be  often  away  from  home,  either  as  a  governor 
or  one  who  is  governed  or  discharging  some  office,  or  serv- 
ing in  war  or  acting  as  a  judge?  Then  do  you  tell  me  that 
you  wish,  as  a  plant,  to  be  fixed  to  the  same  places  and  to 
be  rooted? — Yes,  for  it  is  pleasant. — Who  says  that  it  is 
not  ?  but  a  soup  is  pleasant,  and  a  handsome  woman  is  pleas- 
ant. What  else  do  those  say  who  make  pleasure  their  end  ? 
Do  you  not  see  of  what  men  you  have  uttered  the  language  ? 
that  it  is  the  language  of  Epicureans  and  catamites?  Next 
while  you  are  doing  what  they  do  and  holding  their  opinions, 
do  you  speak  to  us  the  words  of  Zeno  and  of  Socrates? 
Will  you  not  throw  away  as  far  as  you  can  the  things  be- 
longing to  others  with  which  you  decorate  yourself,  though 
they  do  not  fit  you  at  all  ?  For  what  else  do  they  desire  than 
to  sleep  without  hindrance  and  free  from  compulsion,  and 
when  they  have  risen  to  yawn  at  their  leisure,  and  to  wash 
the  face,  then  write  and  read  what  they  choose,  and  then 
talk  about  some  trifling  matter  being  praised  by  their  friends 
whatever  they  may  say,  then  to  go  forth  for  a  walk,  and 
having  walked  about  a  little  to  bathe,  and  then  eat  and  sleep 
such  sleep  as  is  the  fashion  of  such  men?  why  need  we  say 
how?  for  one  can  easily  conjecture.  Come,  do  you  also  tell 
your  own  way  of  passing  the  time  which  you  desire,  you 
who  are  an  admirer  of  truth  and  of  Socrates  and  Diog- 
enes. What  do  you  wish  to  do  in  Athens?  the  same  (that 
others  do),  or  something  else?  Why  then  do  you  call  your- 
self a  Stoic?  Well,  but  they  who  falsely  call  themselves 
Roman  citizens,®  are  severely  punished;  and  should  those, 


274 


EPICTETUS 


who  falsely  claim  so  great  and  reverend  a  thing  and  name, 
get  off  unpunished?  or  is  this  not  possible,  but  the  law  di- 
vine and  strong  and  inevitable  is  this,  which  exacts  the  se- 
verest punishments  from  those  who  commit  the  greatest 
crimes?  For  what  does  this  law  say?  Let  him  who  pre- 
tends to  things  which  do  not  belong  to  him  be  a  boaster,  a 
vainglorious  man;'^  let  him  who  disobeys  the  divine  ad- 
ministration be  base,  and  a  slave;  let  him  suffer  grief,  let 
him  be  envious,  let  him  pity;*  and  in  a  word  let  him  be  un- 
happy and  lament. 

Well  then ;  do  you  wish  me  to  pay  court  to  a  certain  per- . 
son?  to  go  to  his  doors ?^ — If  reason  requires  this  to  be  done 
for  the  sake  of  country,  for  the  sake  of  kinsmen,  for  the 
sake  of  mankind,  why  should  you  not  go?  You  are  not 
ashamed  to  go  to  the  doors  of  a  shoemaker,  when  you  are 
in  want  of  shoes,  nor  to  the  door  of  a  gardener,  when  you 
want  lettuces ;  and  are  you  ashamed  to  go  to  the  doors  of  the 
rich  when  you  want  any  thing? — Yes,  for  I  have  no  awe  of 
a  shoemaker — Don't  feel  any  awe  of  the  rich — Nor  will  I 
flatter  the  gardener — And  do  not  flatter  the  rich — How  then 
shall  I  get  what  I  want  ? — Do  I  say  to  you,  go  as  if  you  were 
certain  to  get  what  you  want  ?  And  do  not  I  only  tell  you, 
that  you  may  do  what  is  becoming  to  yourself  ?  Why  then 
should  I  still  go?  That  you  may  have  gone,  that  you  may 
have  discharged  the  duty  of  a  citizen,  of  a  brother,  of  a 
friend.  And  further  remember  that  you  have  gone  to  the 
shoemaker,  to  the  seller  of  vegetables,  who  have  no  power 
in  any  thing  great  or  noble,  though  he  may  sell  dear.  You 
go  to  buy  lettuces:  they  cost  an  obolus  (penny),  but  not  a 
talent.  So  it  is  here  also.  The  matter  is  worth  going  for 
to  the  rich  man's  door — Well,  I  will  go — It  is  worth  talk- 
ing about — Let  it  be  so ;  I  will  talk  with  him — But  you  must 
also  kiss  his  hand  and  flatter  him  with  praise — Away  with 
that,  it  is  a  talent's  worth :  it  is  not  profitable  to  me,  nor  to 
the  state  nor  to  my  friends,  to  have  done  that  which  spoils 
a  good  citizen  and  a  friend. — But  you  will  seem  not  to  have 
been  eager  about  the  matter,  if  you  do  not  succeed.  Have  you 
again  forgotten  why  you  went  ?  Know  you  not  that  a  good 
man  does  nothing  for  the  sake  of  appearance,  but  for  the  sake 
of  doing  right? — What  advantage  is  it  then  to  him  to  have 


DISCOURSES  275 

done  right  ? — And  what  advantage  is  it  to  a  man  who  writes 
the  name  of  Dion  to  write  it  as  he  ought  ? — The  advantage 
is  to  have  written  it. — Is  there  no  reward  then^^  ? — Do  you 
seek  a  reward  for  a  good  man  greater  than  doing  what  is 
good  and  just?  At  Olympia  you  wish  for  nothing  more, 
but  it  seems  to  you  enough  to  be  crowned  at  the  games. 
Does  it  seem  to  you  so  small  and  worthless  a  thing  to  be 
good  and  happy?  For  these  purposes  being  introduced  by 
the  gods  into  this  city  (the  world),  and  it  being  now  your 
duty  to  undertake  the  work  of  a  man,  do  you  still  want 
nurses  also  and  a  mamma,  and  do  foolish  women  by  their 
weeping  move  you  and  make  you  effeminate?  Will  you 
thus  never  cease  to  be  a  foolish  child  ?  know  you  not  that  he 
who  does  the  acts  of  a  child,  the  older  he  is,  the  more  ridic- 
ulous he  is  ? 

In  Athens  did  you  see  no  one  by  going  to  his  house? — 
I  visited  any  man  that  I  pleased — Here  also  be  ready  to 
see,  and  you  will  see  whom  you  please:  only  let  it  be  with- 
out meanness,  neither  with  desire  nor  with  aversion,  and 
your  affairs  will  be  well  managed.  But  this  result  does  not 
depend  on  going  nor  on  standing  at  the  doors,  but  it  de- 
pends on  what  is  within,  on  your  opinions.  When  you 
have  learned  not  to  value  things  which  are  external  and 
not  dependent  on  the  will,  and  to  consider  that  not  one  of 
them  is  your  own,  but  that  these  things  only  are  your  own, 
to  exercise  the  judgment  well,  to  form  opinions,  to  move 
towards  an  object,  to  desire,  to  turn  from  a  thing,  where 
is  there  any  longer  room  for  flattery,  where  for  meanness? 
why  do  you  still  long  for  the  quiet  there  (at  Athens),  and 
for  the  places  to  which  you  are  accustomed?  Wait  a  little 
and  you  will  again  find  these  places  familiar:  then,  if  you 
are  of  so  ignoble  a  nature,  again  if  you  leave  these  also, 
weep  and  lament. 

How  then  shall  I  become  of  an  affectionate  temper?  By 
being  of  a  noble  disposition,  and  happy.  For  it  is  not  rea- 
sonable to  be  mean-spirited  nor  to  lament  yourself,  nor  to 
depend  on  another,  nor  even  to  blame  God  or  man.  I  en- 
treat you,  become  an  affectionate  person  in  this  way,  by 
observing  these  rules.  But  if  through  this  affection,  as  you 
name  it,  you  are  going  to  be  a  slave  and  wretched,  there  is  no 


276  EPICTETUS 

profit  in  being  affectionate.  And  what  prevents  you  from 
loving  another  as  a  person  subject  to  mortahty,  as  one  who 
may  go  away  from  you.  Did  not  Socrates  love  his  own 
children  ?  He  did ;  but  it  was  as  a  free  man,  as  one  who  re- 
membered that  he  must  first  be  a  friend  to  the  gods.  For 
this  reason  he  violated  nothing  which  was  becoming  to  a 
good  man,  neither  in  making  his  defence  nor  by  fixing  a 
penalty  on  himself,^  ^  nor  even  in  the  former  part  of  his 
life  when  he  was  a  senator  or  when  he  was  a  soldier.  But  we 
are  fully  supplied  with  every  pretext  for  being  of  ignoble 
temper,  some  for  the  sake  of  a  child,  some  for  a  mother,  and 
others  for  brethren's  sake.  But  it  is  not  fit  for  us  to  be  un- 
happy on  account  of  any  person,  but  to  be  happy  on  ac- 
count of  all,  but  chiefly  on  account  of  God  who  has  made 
us  for  this  end.  Well,  did  Diogenes^ ^  love  nobody,  who  was 
so  kind  and  so  much  a  lover  of  all  that  for  mankind  in 
general  he  willingly  undertook  so  much  labour  and  bodily 
sufferings?  He  did  love  mankind,  but  how?  As  became 
a  minister  of  God,  at  the  same  time  caring  for  men,  and 
being  also  subject  to  God.  For  this  reason  all  the  earth 
was  his  country,  and  no  particular  place;  and  when  he  was 
taken  prisoner  he  did  not  regret  Athens  nor  his  associates 
and  friends  there,  but  even  he  became  familiar  with  the 
pirates  and  tried  to  improve  them;  and  being  sold  after- 
wards he  lived  in  Corinth  as  before  at  Athens ;  and  he  would 
have  behaved  the  same,  if  he  had  gone  to  the  country  of 
the  Perrhaebi.^^  Thus  is  freedom  acquired.  For  this  rea- 
son he  used  to  say,  "Ever  since  Antisthenes  made  me  free, 
I  have  not  been  a  slave."  How  did  Antisthenes  make  him 
free?  Hear  what  he  says:  Antisthenes  taught  me  what  is 
my  own,  and  what  is  not  my  own;  possessions  are  not  my 
own,  nor  kinsmen,  domestics,  friends,  nor  reputation,  nor 
places  familiar,  nor  mode  of  life;  all  these  belong  to  others. 
What  then  is  your  own?  The  use  of  appearances.  This 
he  showed  to  me,  that  I  possess  it  free  from  hindrance,  and 
from  compulsion,  no  person  can  put  an  obstacle  in  my  way, 
no  person  can  force  me  to  use  appearances  otherwise  than 
I  wish.  Who  then  has  any  power  over  me?  Philip  or 
Alexander,  or  Perdiccas  or  the  great  king?  How  have 
they  this  power?    For  if  a  man  is  going  to  be  overpowered 


DISCOURSES  ■  277 

by  a  man,  he  must  long  before  be  overpowered  by  things.  If 
then  pleasure  is  not  able  to  subdue  a  man,  nor  pain,  nor 
fame,  nor  wealth,  but  he  is  able,  when  he  chooses,  to  spit 
out  all  his  poor  body  in  a  man's  face  and  depart  from  life, 
whose  slave  can  he  still  be?  But  if  he  dwelt  with  pleasure 
in  Athens,  and  was  overpowered  by  this  manner  of  life,  his 
affairs  would  have  been  at  every  man's  command ;  the  stron- 
ger would  have  the  power  of  grieving  him.  How  do  you 
think  that  Diogenes  would  have  flattered  the  pirates  that 
they  might  sell  him  to  some  Athenian,  that  sometime  he 
might  see  that  beautiful  Piraeus,  and  the  Long  Walls  and 
the  Acropolis?  In  what  condition  would  you  see  them? 
As  a  captive,  a  slave  and  mean :  and  what  would  be  the  use  of 
it  for  you  ? — Not  so :  but  I  should  see  them  as  a  free  man — 
Show  me,  how  you  would  be  free.  Observe,  some  person 
has  caught  you,  who  leads  you  away  from  your  accustomed 
place  of  abode  and  says,  "You  are  my  slave,  for  it  is  in  my 
power  to  hinder  you  from  living  as  you  please,  it  is  in  my 
power  to  treat  you  gently,  and  to  humble  you:  when  I 
choose,  on  the  contrary  you  are  cheerful  and  go  elated  to 
Athens."  What  do  you  say  to  him  who  treats  you  as  a 
slave?  What  means  have  you  of  finding  one  who  will 
rescue  you  from  slavery  ?  Or  can  not  you  even  look  him  in 
the  face,  but  without  saying  more  do  you  intreat  to  be  set 
free?  Man,  you  ought  to  go  gladly  to  prison,  hastening, 
going  before  those  who  lead  you  there.  Then,  I  ask  you, 
are  you  unwilling  to  live  in  Rome  and  desire  to  live  in 
Hellas  (Greece)  ?  And  when  you  must  die,  will  you  then 
also  fill  us  with  your  lamentations,  because  you  will  not  see 
Athens  nor  walk  about  in  the  Lyceion?  Have  you  gone 
abroad  for  this?  was  it  for  this  reason  you  have  sought  to 
find  some  person  from  whom  you  might  receive  benefit? 
What  benefit  ?  That  you  may  solve  syllogisms  more  readily, 
or  handle  hypothetical  arguments?  and  for  this  reason  did 
you  leave  brother,  country,  friends,  your  family,  that  you 
might  return  when  you  had  learned  these  things?  So  you 
did  not  go  abroad  to  obtain  constancy  of  mind,  nor  free- 
dom from  perturbation,  nor  in  order  that  being  secure  from 
harm  you  may  never  complain  of  any  person,  accuse  no 
person,  and  no  man  may  wrong  you,  and  thus  you  may 


278  EPICTETUS 

maintain  your  relative  position  without  impediment?  This 
is  a  fine  traffic  that  you  have  gone  abroad  for  in  syllogisms 
and  sophistical  arguments  and  hypothetical :  if  you  like, 
take  your  place  in  the  agora  (market  or  public  place)  and 
proclaim  them  for  sale  like  dealers  in  physic.^*  Will  you 
not  deny  even  all  that  you  have  learned  that  you  may  not 
bring  a  bad  name  on  your  theorems  as  useless  ?  What  harm 
has  philosophy  done  you?  Wherein  has  Chrysippus  injured 
you  that  you  should  prove  by  your  acts  that  his  labours 
are  useless?  Were  the  evils  that  you  had  there  (at  home) 
not  enough,  those  which  were  the  cause  of  your  pain  and 
lamentation,  even  if  you  had  not  gone  abroad?  Have  you 
added  more  to  the  list?  And  if  you  again  have  other  ac- 
quaintances and  friends,  you  will  have  more  causes  for 
lamentation;  and  the  same  also  if  you  take  an  affection 
for  another  country.  Why  then  do  you  live  to  surround 
yourself  with  other  sorrows  upon  sorrows  through  which 
you  are  unhappy  ?  Then,  I  ask  you,  do  you  call  this  affec- 
tion? What  affection,  man!  If  it  is  a  good  thing,  it  is  the 
cause  of  no  evil :  if  it  is  bad,  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
I  am  formed  by  nature  for  my  own  good :  I  am  not  formed 
for  my  own  evil. 

What  then  is  the  discipline  for  this  purpose  ?  First  of  all 
the  highest  and  the  principal,  and  that  which  stands  as  it 
were  at  the  entrance,  is  this :  when  you  are  delighted  with 
anything,  be  delighted  as  with  a  thing  which  is  not  one  of 
those  which  can  not  be  taken  away,  but  as  with  something  of 
such  a  kind,  as  an  earthen  pot  is,  or  a  glass  cup,  that  when  it 
has  been  broken,  you  may  remember  what  it  was,  and  may 
not  be  troubled.  So  in  this  matter  also:  if  you  kiss  your 
own  child,  or  your  brother  or  friend,  never  give  full  license 
to  the  appearance  {(pavradiav) ,  and  allow  not  your  pleasure 
to  go  as  far  as  it  chooses ;  but  check  it,  and  curb  it  as  those 
who  stand  behind  men  in  their  triumphs  and  remind  them 
that  they  are  mortal.^*^  Do  you  also  remind  yourself  in  like 
manner,  that  he  whom  you  love  is  mortal,  and  that  what  you 
love  is  nothing  of  your  own :  it  has  been  given  to  you  for  the 
present,  not  that  it  should  not  be  taken  from  you,  nor  has  it 
been  given  to  you  for  all  time,  but  as  a  fig  is  given  to  you  or 
a  bunch  of  grapes  at  the  appointed  season  of  the  year.  But  if 


DISCOURSES  279 

you  wish  for  these  things  in  winter,  you  are  a  fool.  So  if  you 
wish  for  your  son  or  friend  when  it  is  not  allowed  to  you,  you 
must  know  that  you  are  wishing  for  a  fig  in  winter.  For  such 
as  winter  is  to  a  fig,  such  is  every  event  which  happens  from 
the  universe  to  the  things  which  are  taken  away  according  to 
its  nature.  And  further,  at  the  times  when  you  are  delighted 
with  a  thing,  place  before  yourself  the  contrary  appearances. 
What  harm  is  it  while  you  are  kissing  your  child  to  say  with 
a  lisping  voice,  "To-morrow  you  will  die;"  and  to  a  friend 
also,  "To-morrow  you  will  go  away  or  I  shall,  and  never 
shall  we  see  one  another  again?" — But  these  are  words  of 
bad  omen. — And  some  incantations  also  are  of  bad  omen; 
but  because  they  are  useful,  I  don't  care  for  this;  only  let 
them  be  useful.  But  do  you  call  things  to  be  of  bad  omen  ex- 
cept those  which  are  significant  of  some  evil  ?  Cowardice  is 
a  word  of  bad  omen,  and  meanness  of  spirit,  and  sorrow,  and 
grief  and  shamelessness.  These  words  are  of  bad  omen :  and 
yet  we  ought  not  to  hesitate  to  utter  them  in  order  to  protect 
ourselves  against  the  things.  Do  you  tell  me  that  a  name 
which  is  significant  of  any  natural  thing  is  of  bad  omen  ?  say 
that  even  for  the  ears  of  corn  to  be  reaped  is  of  bad  omen,  for 
it  signifies  the  destruction  of  the  ears,  but  not  of  the  world. 
Say  that  the  falling  of  the  leaves  also  is  of  bad  omen,  and  for 
the  dried  fig  to  take  the  place  of  the  green  fig,  and  for  raisins 
to  be  made  from  the  grapes.  For  all  these  things  are  changes 
from  a  former  state  into  other  states ;  not  a  destruction,  but 
a  certain  fixed  economy  and  administration.  Such  is  going 
away  from  home  and  a  small  change :  such  is  death,  a  greater 
change,  not  from  the  state  which  now  is  to  that  which  is  not, 
but  to  that  which  is  not  now. — Shall  I  then  no  longer  exist? 
— You  will  not  exist,  but  you  will  be  something  else,  of  which 
the  world  now  has  need :  for  you  also  came  into  existence 
not  when  you  chose,  but  when  the  world  had  need  of  you.^® 

Wherefore  the  wise  and  good  man,  remembering  who  he 
is  and  whence  he  came,  and  by  whom  he  was  produced,  is 
attentive  only  to  this,  how  he  may  fill  his  place  with  due  regu- 
larity, and  obediently  to  God.  Dost  thou  still  wish  me  to 
exist  (live)  ?  I  will  continue  to  exist  as  free,  as  noble  in 
nature,  as  thou  hast  wished  me  to  exist :  for  thou  hast  made 
me  free  from  hindrance  in  that  which  is  my  own.     But  hast 


28o  EPICTETUS 

thou  no  further  need  of  me?  I  thank  thee;  and  so  far  I 
have  remained  for  thy  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  no  other 
person,  and  now  in  obedience  to  thee  I  depart.  How  dost 
thou  depart?  Again,  I  say,  as  thou  hast  pleased,  as  free, 
as  thy  servant,  as  one  who  hast  known  thy  commands  and 
thy  prohibitions.  And  so  long  as  I  shall  stay  in  thy  service, 
whom  dost  thou  will  me  to  be  ?  A  prince  or  a  private  man, 
a  senator  or  a  common  person,  a  soldier  or  a  general,  a 
teacher  or  a  master  of  a  family  ?  whatever  place  and  position 
thou  mayest  assign  to  me,  as  Socrates  says,  I  will  die  ten 
thousand  times  rather  than  desert  them.  And  where  dost 
thou  will  me  to  be  ?  in  Rome  or  Athens,  or  Thebes  or  Gyara. 
Only  remember  me  there  where  I  am.  If  thou  sendest  me 
to  a  place  where  there  are  no  means  for  men  living  according 
to  nature,  I  shall  not  depart  (from  life)  in  disobedience  to 
thee,  but  as  if  thou  wast  giving  me  the  signal  to  retreat :  I 
do  not  leave  thee,  let  this  be  far  from  my  intention,  but  I  per- 
ceive that  thou  hast  no  need  of  me.  If  means  of  living  ac- 
cording to  nature  be  allowed  to  me,  I  will  seek  no  other 
place  than  that  in  which  I  am,  or  other  men  than  those 
among  whom  I  am. 

Let  these  thoughts  be  ready  to  hand  by  night  and  by  day : 
these  you  should  write,  these  you  should  read :  about  these 
you  should  talk  to  yourself,  and  to  others.  Ask  a  man,  Can 
you  help  me  at  all  for  this  purpose?  and  further,  go  to  an- 
other and  to  another.  Then  if  any  thing  that  is  said  be  con- 
trary to  your  wish,  this  reflection  first  will  immediately  re- 
lieve you,  that  it  is  not  unexpected.  For  it  is  a  great  thing 
in  all  cases  to  say,  I  knew  that  I  begot  a  son  who  is  mortal.^^ 
For  so  you  also  will  say,  I  knew  that  I  am  mortal,  I  knew 
that  I  may  leave  my  home,  I  knew  that  I  may  be  ejected  from 
it,  I  knew  that  I  may  be  led  to  prison.  Then  if  you  turn 
round  and  look  to  yourself,  and  seek  the  place  from  which 
comes  that  which  has  happened,  you  will  forthwith  recollect 
that  it  comes  from  the  place  of  things  which  are  out  of  the 
power  of  the  will,  and  of  things  which  are  not  my  own. 
What  then  is  it  to  me?  Then,  you  will  ask,  and  this  is  the 
chief  thing :  And  who  is  it  that  sent  it  ?  The  leader,  or  the 
general,  the  state,  the  law  of  the  state.  Give  it  me  then,  for 
I  must  always  obey  the  law  in  every  thing.     Then,  when  the 


DISCOURSES  281 

appearance  (of  things)  pains  you,  for  it  is  not  in  your  power 
to  prevent  this,  contend  against  it  by  the  aid  of  reason,  con- 
quer it :  do  not  allow  it  to  gain  strength  nor  to  lead  you  to 
the  consequences  by  raising  images  such  as  it  pleases  and  as 
it  pleases.  If  you  be  in  Gyara,  do  not  imagine  the  mode  of 
living  at  Rome,  and  how  many  pleasures  there  were  for  him 
who  lived  there  and  how  many  there  would  be  for  him  who 
returned  to  Rome :  but  fix  your  mind  on  this  matter,  how  a 
man  who  lives  in  Gyara  ought  to  live  in  Gyara  like  a  man  of 
courage.  And  if  you  be  in  Rome,  do  not  imagine  what  the 
life  in  Athens  is,  but  think  only  of  the  life  in  Rome. 

Then  in  the  place  of  all  other  delights  substitute  this,  that 
of  being  conscious  that  you  are  obeying  God,  than  not  in 
word,  but  in  deed  you  are  performing  the  acts  of  a  wise  and 
good  man.  For  what  a  thing  it  is  for  a  man  to  be  able  to  say 
to  himself.  Now  whatever  the  rest  may  say  in  solemn  man- 
ner in  the  schools  and  may  be  judged  to  be  saying  in  a  way 
contrary  to  common  opinion  (or  in  a  strange  way)  this  I  am 
doing;  and  they  are  sitting  and  discoursing  of  my  vir- 
tues and  inquiring  about  me  and  praising  me;  and  of  this 
Zeus  has  willed  that  I  shall  receive  from  myself  a  demonstra- 
tion, and  shall  myself  know  if  he  has  a  soldier  such  as  he 
ought  to  have,  a  citizen  such  as  he  ought  to  have,  and  if  he 
has  chosen  to  produce  me  to  the  rest  of  mankind  as  a  witness 
of  the  things  which  are  independent  of  the  will:  See  that 
you  fear  without  reason,  that  you  foolishly  desire  what  you 
do  desire :  seek  not  the  good  in  things  external ;  seek  it  in 
yourselves :  if  you  do  not,  you  will  not  find  it.  For  this  pur- 
pose he  leads  me  at  one  time  hither,  at  another  time  sends 
me  thither,  shows  me  to  men  as  poor,  without  authority,  and 
sick;  sends  me  to  Gyara,  leads  me  into  prison,  not  because 
he  hates  me,  far  from  him  be  such  a  meaning,  for  who  hates 
the  best  of  his  servants?  nor  yet  because  he  cares  not  for  me. 
for  he  does  not  neglect  any  even  of  the  smallest  things;^® 
but  he  does  this  for  the  purpose  of  exercising  me  and  making 
use  of  me  as  a  witness  to  others.  Being  appointed  to  such  a 
service,  do  I  still  care  about  the  place  in  which  I  am.  or  with 
whom  I  am,  or  what  men  say  about  me?  and  do  I  not  en- 
tirely direct  my  thoughts  to  God  and  to  his  instructions  and 
commands  ? 


282  EPICTETUS 

Having  these  things  (or  thoughts)  always  in  hand,  and 
exercising  them  by  yourself,  and  keeping  them  in  readiness, 
you  will  never  be  in  want  of  one  to  comfort  you  and 
strengthen  you.  For  it  is  not  shameful  to  be  without  some- 
thing to  eat,  but  not  to  have  reason  sufficient  for  keeping 
away  fear  and  sorrow.  But  if  once  you  have  gained  ex- 
emption from  sorrow  and  fear,  will  there  any  longer  be  a 
tyrant  for  you,  or  a  tyrant's  guard,  or  attendants  on 
Caesar?  Or  shall  any  appointment  to  offices  at  court  cause 
you  pain,  or  shall  those  who  sacrifice  in  the  Capitol  on  the 
occasion  of  being  named  to  certain  functions,  cause  pain  to 
you  who  have  received  so  great  authority  from  Zeus  ?  Only 
do  not  make  a  proud  display  of  it,  nor  boast  of  it ;  but  shew 
it  by  your  acts ;  and  if  no  man  perceives  it,  be  satisfied  that 
you  are  yourself  in  a  healthy  state  and  happy. 

NOTES 

*  See  ii.  5,  26. 

'  See  iii.  13,  15. 

*  Homer,  Odyssey  i.  3. 

*  Odyssey,  xvii.  487. 

■>  dicexetv.     See  iii.  2,  13.     Paul  to  the  Philippians,  iv.  18. 

'Suetonius  (Claudius,  25)  says:  "Peregrinae  conditionis  homines 
vetuit  usurpare  Romana  nomina,  duntaxat  gentilia.  Civitatem  Ro- 
manam  usurpantes  in  campo,   Esquilino  securi  percussit." 

^  This  is  a  denunciation  of  the  hypocrite. 

'  "Pity"  perhaps  means  that  he  will  suffer  the  perturbation  of  pity, 
when  he  ought  not  to  feel  it.     I  am  not  sure  about  the  exact  meaning. 

*  "What  follows  hath  no  connection  with  what  immediately  preceded ; 
but  belongs  to  the  general  subject  of  the  chapter."  Mrs.  Carter. 

"The  person  with  whom  Epictetus  chiefly  held  this  discourse,  seems 
to  have  been  instructed  by  his  friends  to  pay  his  respects  to  some  great 
man  at  Nicopolis  (perhaps  the  procurator,  iii.  4.  i)  and  to  visit  his 
house."     Schweighauser. 

"  The  reward  of  virtue  is  in  the  acts  of  virtue.  The  Stoics  taught 
that  virtue  is  its  own  reward.  When  I  was  a  boy  I  have  written  this 
in  copies,  but  I  did  not  know  what  it  meant.  I  know  now  that  few 
people  believe  it;  and  like  the  man  here,  they  inquire  what  reward 
they  shall  have  for  doing  as  they  ought  to  do.  A  man  of  common 
sense  would  give  no  other  answer  than  what  Epictetus  gives.  But  that 
will  not  satisfy  all.  The  heathens  must  give  the  answer  :  "  For  what 
more  dost  thou  want  when  thou  hast  done  a  man  a  service?  Art  thou 
not  content  that  thou  hast  done  something  conformable  to  thy  nature, 
and  dost  thou  seek  to  be  paid  for  it?  just  as  if  the  eye  demanded  a 
recompense  for  seeing  or  the  feet  for  walking."  M.  Antoninus,  ix.  42. 
Compare  Seneca,  de  Vita  Beata,  c.  9. 

"  It  was  the  custom  at  Athens  when  the  court  (the  dicasts)  had  de- 
termined to  convict  an  accused  person,  in  some  cases  at  least,  to  ask 


DISCOURSES  283 

him  what  penalty  he  proposed  to  be  inflicted  on  himself;  but  Socrates 
refused  to  do  this  or  to  allow  his  friends  to  do  it,  for  he  said  that  to 
name  the  penalty  was  the  same  as  admitting  his  guilt  (Xenophon, 
Apologia,  23).  Socrates  said  that  if  he  did  name  a  proper  penalty  for 
himself,  it  would  be  that  he  should  daily  be  allowed  to  dine  in  the 
Prytaneium  (Plato,  Apology,  c.  26;    Cicero,  De  Oratore,  i.  54). 

"  The  character  of  Diogenes  is  described  very  diflFerently  by  Epic- 
tetus  from  that  which  we  read  in  common  books. 

"A  people  in  Thessaly  between  the  river  Peneius  and  Mount  Olym- 
pus.    It  is  the  same  as  if  Epictetus  had  said  to  any  remote  country. 

"  This  is  an  old  practice,  to  go  about  and  sell  physic  to  people. 
Cicero  (Pro  Cluentio,  c.  14)  speaks  of  such  a  quack  (pharmacopola), 
who  would  do  a  poisoning  job  for  a  proper  sum  of  money.  I  have  seen 
a  travelling  doctor  in  France  who  went  about  in  a  cart,  and  rang  a 
bell,  at  the  sound  of  which  people  came  round  him.  Some  who  were 
deaf  had  stuff  poured  into  their  ears,  paid  their  money,  and  made  way 
for  others  who  had  other  complaints. 

"  It  was  the  custom  in  Roman  triumphs  for  a  slave  to  stand  behind 
the  triumphant  general  in  his  chariot  and  to  remind  him  that  he  was 
still  mortal.     Juvenal,  x.  41. 

"  I  am  not  sure  if  Epictetus  ever  uses  Kodjuoi  in  the  sense  of  Uni- 
verse, the  "  universum  "  of  philosophers.  I  think  he  sometimes  uses  it 
in  the  common  sense  of  the  world,  the  earth  and  all  that  is  on  it.  Epic- 
tetus appears  to  teach  that  when  a  man  dies,  his  existence  is  terminated. 
The  body  is  resolved  into  the  elements  of  which  it  is  formed,  and  these 
elements  are  employed  for  other  purposes.  Consistently  with  this  doc- 
trine he  may  have  supposed  that  the  powers,  which  we  call  rational 
and  intellectual,  exist  in  man  by  virtue  only  of  the  organisation  of  his 
brain  which  is  superior  to  that  of  all  other  animals ;  and  that  what  we 
name  the  soul  has  no  existence  independent  of  the  body.  It  was  an  old 
Greek  hypothesis  that  at  death  the  body  returned  to  earth  from  which  it 
came,  and  the  soul  {itvevfio)  returned  to  the  regions  above,  from  which 
it  came.  I  can  not  discover  any  passage  in  Epictetus  in  which  the  doc- 
trine is  taught  that  the  soul  has  an  existence  independent  of  the  body. 
The  opinions  of  Marcus  Antoninus  on  this  matter  are  contained  in  his 
book,  iv.  14,  21,  and  perhaps  elsewhere:  but  they  are  rather  obscure. 
A  recent  writer  has  attempted  to  settle  the  question  of  the  existence  of 
departed  souls  by  affirming  that  we  can  find  no  place  for  them  either 
in  heaven  or  in  hell ;  for  the  modern  scientific  notion,  as  I  suppose  that 
it  must  be  named,  does  not  admit  the  conception  of  a  place  heaven  or  a 
place  hell  (Strauss,  Der  Alte  und  der  Neue  Glaube,  p.  129). 

We  may  name  Paul  a  contemporary  of  Epictetus,  for  though  Epic- 
tetus may  have  been  the  younger,  he  was  living  at  Rome  during  Nero's 
reign  (A.  D.  54-68)  ;  and  it  is  affirmed,  whether  correctly  or  not,  I  do 
not  undertake  to  say,  that  Paul  wrote  from  Ephesus  his  first  epistle  to 
the  Corinthians  (Cor.  i.  16.  8)  in  the  beginning  of  A.  D.  56.  Epictetus 
it  is  said,  lived  in  Rome,  till  the  time  of  the  expulsion  of  the  philoso- 
phers by  Domitian,  when  he  retired  to  Nicopolis  an  old  man,  and  taught 
there.  Paul's  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  (c.  15)  contains  his  doctrine 
of  the  resurrection,  which  is  accepted,  I  believe,  by  all,  or  nearly  all,  if 
there  are  any  exceptions,  who  profess  the  Christian  faith :  but  it  is  not 
understood  by  all  in  the  same  way. 

Paul  teaches  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins,  that  he  was  buried  and 
rose  again  on  the  third  day:  and  that  after  his  resurrection  he  was 
seen  by  many  persons.     Then  he  a^k?,  if  Christ  rose  from  the  dead,  how 


284 


EPICTETUS 


can  some  say  that  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead?  "But  if  there 
be  no  resurrection  of  the  dead,  then  is  Christ  not  risen"  (v.  13)  ;  and 
(v.  19),  "  if  in  this  life  only  we  have  hope  in  Christ,  we  are  of  all  men 
most  miserable."  But  he  affirms  again  (v.  20)  that  "Christ  is  risen  and 
become  the  first  fruits  of  them  that  slept."  In  v.  32,  he  asks  what  ad- 
vantages he  has  from  his  struggles  in  Ephesus,  "  if  the  dead  rise  not  : 
let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die."  He  seems  not  to  admit  the 
value  of  life,  if  there  is  no  resurrection  of  the  dead;  and  he  seems  to 
say  that  we  shall  seek  or  ought  to  seek  only  the  pleasures  of  sense,  be- 
cause life  is  short,  if  we  do  not  believe  in  a  resurrection  of  the  dead. 
It  may  be  added  that  there  is  not  any  direct  assertion  in  this  chapter 
that  Christ  ascended  to  heaven  in  a  bodily  form,  or  that  he  ascended  to 
heaven  in  any  way.  He  then  says  (v.  35),  "  But  some  man  will  say, 
How  are  the  dead  raised  up?  and  with  what  body  do  they  come?"  He 
answers  his  question  (v.  36),  "Thou  fool,  that  which  thou  sowest  is 
not  quickened  except  it  die ;"  and  he  adds  that  "  God  giveth  it  (the  seed) 
a  body  as  it  hath  pleased  him,  and  to  every  seed  his  own  body."  We  all 
know  that  the  body  which  is  produced  from  the  seed,  is  not  the  body 
"  that  shall  be ;  "  and  we  also  know  that  the  seed  which  is  sown  does  not 
die,  and  that  if  the  seed  died,  no  body  would  be  produced  from  such 
seed.  His  conclusion  is  that  the  dead  "is^sown  a  natural  body;  it  is 
raised  a  spiritual  body"  {d&jna  ifvsvjiartKov).  I  believe  that  the  com- 
mentators do  not  agree  about  this  "spiritual  body,"  but  it  seems  plain 
that  Paul  did  not  teach  that  the  body  which  will  rise  will  be  the  same 
as  the  body  which  is  buried.  He  says  (v.  50)  that  "flesh  and  blood  can 
not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  Yet  in  the  Apostles'  Creed  we  pro- 
nounce our  belief  in  the  "resurrection  of  the  body" ;  but  in  the  Nicene 
Creed  it  is  said  we  look  "  for  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,"  which  is  a 
different  thing  or  may  have  a  different  meaning  from  "  the  resurrection 
of  the  body."  In  the  ministration  of  baptism  to  such  as  are  of  riper 
years,  the  person  to  be  baptized  is  asked  "  Dost  thou  believe  in  God  the 
Father  Almighty,"  etc.  in  the  terms  of  the  Church  Creeds,  but  in  place 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  body  or  of  the  dead,  he  is  asked  if  he  believes 
"  in  the  resurrection  of  the  flesh." 

The  various  opinions  of  divines  of  the  English  church  on  the  resur- 
rection of  the  body  are  stated  by  A.  Clissold  in  the  Practical  Na- 
ture of  the  Theological  Writings  of  E.  Swedenborg  in  a  letter  to 
Whately,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  1859,  2nd  ed. 

"Seneca  de  Consol.  ad  Pol.  c.  30;    Cicero,  Tuscul.  Disp.  iii.  13. 

"Compare  i.,  12.  2,  ii.  14.  11,  iii.  26.  28.  "Compare  this  with  the  de- 
scription of  the  universal  care  of  Providence,  Matthew,  x.  29,  30,  and 
the  occasion  on  which  it  was  produced."    Mrs.  Carter. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

TO  THOSE   WHO    FALL   OFF  ( DESIST )  FROM   THEIR 
PURPOSE 

CONSIDER  as  to  the  things  which  you  proposed  to 
yourself  at  first,  which  you  have  secured,  and 
which  you  have  not;  and  how  you  are  pleased 
when  you  recall  to  memory  the  one,  and  are  pained 
about  the  other;  and  if  it  is  possible,  recover  the  things 
wherein  you  failed.  For  we  must  not  shrink  when  we  are 
engaged  in  the  greatest  combat,  but  we  must  even  take  blows. 
For  the  combat  before  us  is  not  in  wrestling  and  the  Pancra- 
tion,  in  which  both  the  successful  and  the  unsuccessful  may 
have  the  greatest  merit,  or  may  have  little,  and  in  truth  may 
be  very  fortunate  or  very  unfortunate ;  but  the  combat  is  for 
good  fortune  and  happiness  themselves.  Well  then,  even  if 
we  have  renounced  the  contest  in  this  matter  (for  good  for- 
tune and  happiness),  no  man  hinders  us  from  renewing  the 
combat  again,  and  we  are  not  compelled  to  wait  for  another 
four  years  that  the  games  at  Olympia  may  come  again  ;^  but 
as  soon  as  you  have  recovered  and  restored  yourself,  and 
employ  the  same  zeal,  you  may  renew  the  combat  again ;  and 
if  again  you  renounce  it,  you  may  again  renew  it ;  and  if  you 
once  gain  the  victory,  you  are  like  him  who  has  never  re- 
nounced the  combat.  Only  do  not  through  a  habit  of  doing 
the  same  thing  (renouncing  the  combat)  begin  to  do  it  with 
pleasure,  and  then  like  a  bad  athlete  go  about  after  being 
conquered  in  all  the  circuit  of  the  games  like  quails  who  have 
run  away.^ 

The  sight  of  a  beautiful  young  girl  overpowers  me.  Well, 
have  I  not  been  overpowered  before  ?  An  inclination  arises 
in  me  to  find  fault  with  a  person ;  for  have  I  not  found  fault 
with  him  before?  You  speak  to  us  as  if  you  had  come  off 
(from  these  things)  free  from  harm,  just  as  if  a  man  should 
say  to  his  physician  who  forbids  him  to  bathe,  "Have  I  not 
bathed  before  ?"  If  then  the  physician  can  say  to  him,  "Well, 
and  what  then  happened  to  you  after  the  bath?     Had  you 

28s 


286  EPICTETUS 

not  a  fever,  had  you  not  a  headache  ?"  And  when  you  found 
fault  with  a  person  lately,  did  you  not  do  the  act  of  a  malig- 
nant person,  of  a  trifling  babbler;  did  you  not  cherish  this 
habit  in  you  by  adding  to  it  the  corresponding  acts  ?  And 
when  you  were  overpowered  by  the  young  girl,  did  you 
come  off  unharmed?  Why  then  do  you  talk  of  what  you 
did  before?  You  ought,  I  think,  remembering  what  you 
did,  as  slaves  remember  the  blows  which  they  have  received, 
to  abstain  from  the  same  faults.  But  the  one  case  is  not  like 
the  other;  for  in  the  case  of  slaves  the  pain  causes  the  re- 
membrance :  but  in  the  case  of  your  faults,  what  is  the  pain, 
what  is  the  punishment ;  for  when  have  you  been  accustomed 
to  fly  from  evil  acts?^  Sufferings  then  of  the  trying  char- 
acter are  useful  to  us,  whether  we  choose  or  not. 

NOTES 

*  These  games  were  celebrated  once  in  four  years. 

*  "All  the  circuit  of  the  games  "  means  the  circuit  of  the  Pythian, 
Isthmian,  Nemean,  and  Olympic  games.  A  man  who  had  contended 
in  these  four  games  victoriously  was  named  Periodonices,  or  Perio- 
deutes.    Upton. 

The  Greeks  used  to  put  quails  in  a  cockpit,  as  those  who  are  old 
enough  may  remember  that  we  used  to  put  game  cocks  to  fight  with  one 
another.  Schweighauser  describes  a  way  of  trying  the  courage  of 
these  quails  from  Pollux  (ix.  109)  ;  but  I  suppose  that  the  birds  fought 
also  with  one  another. 

Upton  supposed  that  the  words' AXX'  ovx  o/iotov  ....  to  Kaic&5 
ivEpyijdat,  in  the  translation,  ''But  the  one  case  is  not"  ...  to  "fly 
from  evil  acts,"  are  said  by  the  adversary  of  Epictetus,  and  Mrs.  Carter 
has  followed  Upton  in  the  translation.  But  then  there  is  no  sense  in 
the  last  sentence  Oi  icovot  dpa^  etc.,  in  the  translation,  "Sufferings 
then,"  etc.  The  reader  may  consult  Schweighauser' s  note.  I  suppose 
that  Epictetus  is  speaking  the  words  "  But  the  one  case,"  etc.  to  the 
end  of  the  chapter.  The  adversary,  who  is  not  punished  like  a  slave, 
and  has  no  pains  to  remind  him  of  his  faults,  is  supposed  so  far  not 
to  have  felt  the  consequences  of  his  bad  acts ;  but  Epictetus  concludes 
that  sufferings  of  a  painful  character  would  be  useful  to  him,  as  they 
are  to  all  persons  who  do  what  they  ought  not  to  do.  There  is  perhaps 
some  difficulty  in  the  word  itetpavrjpioav.  But  I  think  that  Schweig. 
has  correctly  explained  the  passage. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

TO   THOSE    WHO    FEAR    WANT* 

ARE  you  not  ashamed  at  being  more  cowardly  and  more 
mean  than  fugitive  slaves  ?  How  do  they  when  they 
run  away  leave  their  masters?  on  what  estates  do 
they  depend,  and  what  domestics  do  they  rely  on? 
Do  they  not  after  stealing  a  little  which  is  enough  for  the  first 
days,  then  afterwards  move  on  through  land  or  through  sea, 
contriving  one  method  after  another  for  maintaining  their 
lives  ?  And  what  fugitive  slave  ever  died  of  hunger  ?^  But 
you  are  afraid  lest  necessary  things  should  fail  you,  and  are 
sleepless  by  night.  Wretch,  are  you  so  blind,  and  don't  you 
see  the  road  to  which  the  want  of  necessaries  leads  ? — Well, 
where  does  it  lead? — To  the  same  place  to  which  a  fever 
leads,  or  a  stone  that  falls  on  you,  to  death.  Have  you  not 
often  said  this  yourself  to  your  companions?  have  you  not 
read  much  of  this  kind,  and  written  much  ?  and  how  often 
have  you  boasted  that  you  were  easy  as  to  death  ? 

Yes :  but  my  wife  and  children  also  suffer  hunger.^ — Well 
then,  does  their  hunger  lead  to  any  other  place?  Is  there 
not  the  same  descent  to  some  place  for  them  also?  Is  not 
there  the  same  state  below  for  them?  Do  you  not  choose 
then  to  look  to  that  place  full  of  boldness  ag'ainst  every  want 
and  deficiency,  to  that  place  to  which  both  the  richest  and 
those  who  have  held  the  highest  offices,  and  kings  themselves 
and  tyrants  must  descend?  or  to  which  you  will  descend 
hungry,  if  it  should  so  happen,  but  they  burst  by  indigestion 
and  drunkenness.  What  beggar  did  you  hardly  ever  see 
who  was  not  an  old  man,  and  even  of  extreme  old  age?  But 
chilled  with  cold  day  and  night,  and  lying  on  the  ground,  and 
eating  only  what  is  absolutely  necessary  they  approach  near 
to  the  impossibility  of  dying.*  Can  not  you  write?  Can  not 
you  teach  (take  care  of)  children?  Can  not  you  be  a  watch- 
man at  another  person's  door  ? — But  it  is  shameful  to  come 
to  such  a  necessity. — Learn  then  first  what  are  the  things 
which  are  shameful,  and  then  tell  us  that  you  are  a  philoso- 

287 


288  EPICTETUS 

pher :  but  at  present  do  not,  even  if  any  other  man  call  you 
so,  allow  it. 

Is  that  shameful  to  you  which  is  not  your  own  act,  that 
of  which  you  are  not  the  cause,  that  which  has  come  to  you 
by  accident,  as  a  headache,  as  a  fever  ?  If  your  parents  were 
poor,  and  left  their  property  to  others,  and  if  while  they  live, 
they  do  not  help  you  at  all,  is  this  shameful  to  you?  Is  this 
what  you  learned  with  the  philosophers?  Did  you  never 
hear  that  the  thing  which  is  shameful  ought  to  be  blamed, 
and  that  which  is  blameable  is  worthy  of  blame  ?  Whom  do 
you  blame  for  an  act  which  is  not  his  own,  which  he  did  not 
do  himself?  Did  you  then  make  your  father  such  as  he  is, 
or  is  it  in  your  power  to  improve  him  ?  Is  this  power  given 
to  you  ?  Well  then,  ought  you  to  wish  the  things  which  are 
not  given  to  you,  or  to  be  ashamed  if  you  do  not  obtain  them  ? 
And  have  you  also  been  accustomed  while  you  were  stud^-ing 
philosophy  to  look  to  others  and  to  hope  for  nothing  from 
yourself?  Lament  then  and  groan  and  eat  with  fear  that 
you  may  not  have  food  to-morrow.  Tremble  about  your 
poor  slaves  lest  they  steal,  lest  they  run  away,  lest  they  die. 
So  live,  and  continue  to  live,  you  who  in  name  only  have  ap- 
proached philosophy,  and  have  disgraced  its  theorems  as  far 
as  you  can  by  showing  them  to  be  useless  and  unprofitable 
to  those  who  take  them  up ;  you  who  have  never  sought  con- 
stancy, freedom  from  perturbation,  and  from  passions :  you 
who  have  not  sought  any  person  for  the  sake  of  this  object, 
but  many  for  the  sake  of  syllogisms;  you  who  have  never 
thoroughly  examined  any  of  these  appearances  by  yourself, 
Am  I  able  to  bear,  or  am  I  not  able  to  bear  ?  What  remains 
for  me  to  do?  But  as  if  all  your  affairs  were  well  and  se- 
cure, you  have  been  resting  on  the  third  topic,*^  that  of  things 
being  unchanged,  in  order  that  you  may  possess  unchanged 
— what  ?  cowardice,  mean  spirit,  the  admiration  of  the  rich, 
desire  without  attaining  any  end,  and  avoidance  {k'KKXidtv) 
which  fails  in  the  attempt?  About  security  in  these  things 
you  have  been  anxious. 

Ought  you  not  to  have  gained  something  in  addition  from 
reason,  and  then  to  have  protected  this  with  security?  And 
whom  did  you  ever  see  building  a  battlement  all  round  and 
not  encircling  it  with  a  wall?®      And  what  door-keeper  is 


DISCOURSES  289 

placed  with  no  door  to  watch?  But  you  practise  in  order 
to  be  able  to  prove — what  ?  You  practise  that  you  may  not 
be  tossed  as  on  the  sea  through  sophisms,  and  tossed  about 
from  what  ?  Shew  me  first  what  you  hold,  what  you  meas- 
ure, or  what  you  weigh ;  and  shew  me  the  scales  or  the  me- 
dimnus  (the  measure)  ;  or  how  long  will  you  go  on  measur- 
ing the  dust  ?'^  Ought  you  not  to  demonstrate  those  things 
which  make  men  happy,  which  make  things  go  on  for  them 
in  the  way  as  they  wish,  and  why  we  ought  to  blame  no  man, 
accuse  no  man,  and  acquiesce  in  the  administration  of  the 
universe?  Shew  me  these.  "See,  I  shew  them:  I  will  re- 
solve syllogisms  for  you," — This  is  the  measure,  slave ;  but 
it  is  not  the  thing  measured.  Therefore  you  are  now  paying 
the  penalty  for  what  you  neglected,  philosophy :  you  tremble, 
you  lie  awake,  you  advise  with  all  persons;  and  if  your 
deliberations  are  not  likely  to  please  all,  you  think  that  you 
have  deliberated  ill.  Then  you  fear  hunger,  as  you  suppose : 
but  it  is  not  hunger  that  you  fear,  but  you  are  afraid  that  you 
will  not  have  a  cook,  that  you  will  not  have  another  to  pur- 
chase provisions  for  the  table,  a  third  to  take  off  your  shoes, 
a  fourth  to  dress  you,  others  to  rub  you,  and  to  follow  you, 
in  order  that  in  the  bath,  when  you  have  taken  off  your 
clothes  and  stretched  yourself  out  like  those  who  are  crucified 
you  may  be  rubbed  on  this  side  and  on  that,  and  then  the 
aliptes( rubber)  may  say  (to  the  slave),  "Change  his  position, 
present  the  side,  take  hold  of  his  head,  shew  the  shoulder ;" 
And  then  when  you  have  left  the  bath  and  gone  home,  you 
may  call  out,  "Does  no  one  bring  me  something  to  eat  ?"  And 
then,  "Take  away  the  tables,  sponge  them :"  You  are  afraid 
of  this,  that  you  may  not  be  able  to  lead  the  life  of  a  sick  man. 
But  learn  the  life  of  those  who  are  in  health,  how  slaves  live, 
how  labourers,  how  those  live  who  are  genuine  philosophers ; 
how  Socrates  lived,  who  had  a  wife  and  children ;  how  Diog- 
enes lived,  and  how  Cleanthes®  who  attended  to  the  school 
and  drew  water.  If  you  choose  to  have  these  things,  you 
will  have  them  every  where,  and  you  will  live  in  full  confi- 
dence. Confiding  in  what?  In  that  alone  in  which  a  man 
can  confide,  in  that  which  is  secure,  in  that  which  is  not  sub- 
ject to  hindrance,  in  that  which  can  not  be  taken  away,  that 
is  in  your  own  will.  And  why  have  you  made  yourself  so  use- 
19 


290  EPICTETUS 

less  and  good  for  nothing  that  no  man  will  choose  to  receive 
you  into  his  house, no  man  to  take  careof  you  ?  but  if  a  utensil 
entire  and  useful  were  cast  abroad,  every  man  who  found  it, 
would  take  it  up  and  think  it  a  gain ;  but  no  man  will  take 
you  up,  and  every  man  will  consider  you  a  loss.  So  can  not 
you  discharge  the  office  even  of  a  dog,  or  of  a  cock  ?  Why 
then  do  you  choose  to  live  any  longer,  when  you  are  what 
you  are  ? 

Does  any  good  man  fear  that  he  shall  fail  to  have  food  ? 
To  the  blind  it  does  not  fail,  to  the  lame  it  does  not :  shall 
it  fail  to  a  good  man  ?  And  to  a  good  soldier  there  does  not 
fail  to  be  one  who  gives  him  pay,  nor  to  a  labourer,  nor  to 
a  shoemaker :  and  to  the  good  man  shall  there  be  wanting 
such  a  person?®  Does  God  thus  neglect  the  things  that  he 
has  established,  his  ministers,  his  witnesses,  whom  alone  he 
employs  as  examples  to  the  uninstructed,  both  that  he  exists, 
and  administers  well  the  whole,  and  does  not  neglect  human 
affairs,  and  that  to  a  good  man  there  is  no  evil  either  when  he 
is  living  or  when  he  is  dead  ?  What  then  when  he  does  not 
supply  him  with  food?  What  else  does  he  do  than  like  a 
good  general  he  has  given  me  the  signal  to  retreat  ?  I  obey, 
I  follow,  assenting  to  the  words  of  the  commander,  praising 
his  acts :  for  I  came  when  it  pleased  him,  and  I  will  also  go 
away  when  it  pleases  him;  and  while  I  lived,  it  was  my 
duty  to  praise  God  both  by  myself,  and  to  each  person  sever- 
ally and  to  many.  He  does  not  supply  me  with  many  things, 
nor  with  abundance,  he  does  not  will  me  to  live  luxuriously ; 
for  neither  did  he  supply  Hercules  who  was  his  own  son ;  but 
another  (Eurystheus)  was  king  of  Argos  and  Mycenae,  and 
Hercules  obeyed  orders,  and  laboured,  and  was  exercised. 
And  Eurystheus  was  what  he  was,  neither  king  of  Argos  nor 
of  Mycenae,  for  he  was  not  even  king  of  himself ;  but  Her- 
cules was  ruler  and  leader  of  the  whole  earth  and  sea,  who 
purged  away  lawlessness,  and  introduced  justice  and  holi- 
ness;^'* and  he  did  these  things  both  naked  and  alone.  And 
when  Ulysses  was  cast  out  shipwrecked,  did  want  humiliate 
him,  did  it  break  his  spirit?  but  how  did  he  go  off  to  the  vir- 
gins to  ask  for  necessaries,  to  beg  which  is  considered  most 
shameful?** 

"As  a  lion  bred  in  the  mountains  trusting  in  his  strength."" 


DISCOURSES  291 

Relying  on  what?  Not  on  reputation  nor  on  wealth  nor 
on  the  power  of  a  magistrate,  but  on  his  own  strength,  that 
is,  on  his  opinions  about  the  things  which  are  in  our  power 
and  those  which  are  not.  For  these  are  the  only  things 
which  make  men  free,  which  make  them  escape  from  hin- 
drance, which  raise  the  head  (neck)  of  those  who  are  de- 
pressed, which  make  them  look  with  steady  eyes  on  the  rich 
and  on  tyrants.  And  this  was  (is)  the  gift  given  to  the  phi- 
losopher. But  you  will  not  come  forth  bold,  but  trembling 
about  your  trifling  garments  and  silver  vessels.  Unhappy 
man,  have  you  thus  wasted  your  time  till  now  ? 

What  then,  if  I  shall  be  sick?  You  will  be  sick  in  such 
a  way  as  you  ought  to  be. — Who  will  take  care  of  me? — 
God;  your  friends. — I  shall  lie  down  on  a  hard  bed. — But 
you  will  lie  down  like  a  man. — I  shall  not  have  a  convenient 
chamber. — You  will  be  sick  in  an  inconvenient  chamber. — 
Who  will  provide  for  me  the  necessary  food? — Those  who 
provide  for  others  also.  You  will  be  sick  like  Manes.*^ — 
And  what  also  will  be  the  end  of  the  sickness?  Any  other 
than  death  ? — Do  you  then  consider  that  this  the  chief  of  all 
evils  to  man  and  the  chief  mark  of  mean  spirit  and  of  cow- 
ardice is  not  death,  but  rather  the  fear  of  death?  Against 
this  fear  then  I  advise  you  to  exercise  yourself :  to  this  let  all 
your  reasoning  tend,  your  exercises,  and  reading;  and  you 
will  know  that  thus  only  are  men  made  free. 

NOTES 

' "  Compare  this  chapter  with  the  beautiful  and  affecting  discourses  of 
our  Saviour  on  the  same  subject,  Matthew  vi.  25-34;  Luke  xii.  22-30." 
Mrs.  Carter.  The  first  verse  of  Matthew  begins,  "Take  no  thought  for 
your  life,  what  ye  shall  eat  or  what  ye  shall  drink,"  etc.  No  Christian 
literally  follows  the  advice  of  this  and  the  following  verses,  and  he  would 
be  condemned  by  the  judgment  of  all  men  if  he  did. 

'  It  is  very  absurd  to  suppose  that  no  fugitive  slave  ever  died  of  hunger. 
How  could  Epictetus  know  that? 

*  He  supposes  that  the  man  who  is  dying  of  hunger  has  also  wife  and 
children,  who  will  suffer  the  same  dreadful  end.  The  consolation,  if  it 
is  any,  is  that  the  rich  and  luxurious  and  kings  will  also  die.  The  fact  is 
true.  Death  is  the  lot  of  all.  But  a  painful  death  by  hunger  can  not  be 
alleviated  by  a  man  knowing  that  all  must  die  in  some  way.  It  seems  as 
if  the  philosopher  expected  that  even  women  and  children  should  be  phi- 
losophers, and  that  the  husband  in  his  philosophy  should  calmly  contem- 
plate the  death  of  wife  and  children  by  starvation.  This  is  an  example  of 
the  absurdity  to  which  even  a  wise  man  carried  his  philosophy ;  and  it  is 
unworthy  of  the  teacher's  general  good  sense. 


292  EPICTETUS 

*  We  see  many  old  beggars  who  endure  what  others  could  not  endure ; 
but  they  all  die  at  last,  and  would  have  died  earlier  if  their  beggar  life 
had  begun  sooner.  The  living  in  the  open  air  and  wandering  about 
help  them  to  last  longer;  but  the  exposure  to  cold  and  wet  and  to  the 
want  of  food  hastens  their  end.  The  life  of  a  poor  old  beggar  is  neither 
so  long  nor  so  comfortable  as  that  of  a  man,  who  has  a  good  home  and 
sufficient  food,  and  lives  with  moderation. 

*  See  iii.  c.  2. 

*  "Plato  using  the  same  simile  teaches  that  last  of  all  disciplines  dia- 
lectic ought  to  be  learned."     Schweighauser. 

'  This  is  good  advice.  When  you  propose  to  measure,  to  estimate 
things,  you  should  first  tell  us  what  the  things  are  before  you  attempt  to 
fix  their  value;  and  what  is  the  measure  or  scales  that  you  use. 

*  Cleanthes,  the  successor  of  Zeno  in  his  school,  was  a  great  example 
of  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  under  difficulties :  during  the  night  he  used 
to  draw  water  from  the  wells  for  the  use  of  the  gardens :  during  the  day 
he  employed  himself  in  his  studies.  He  was  the  author  of  a  noble  hymn 
to  Zeus,  which  is  extant. 

*  It  seems  strange  that  Epictetus  should  make  such  assertions  when  we 
know  that  they  are  not  true.  Shortly  afterward  he  himself  speaks  even 
of  the  good  man  not  being  supplied  with  food  by  God. 

"  Compare  Hebrews  xi.  and  xii.,  in  which  the  Apostle  and  Philoso- 
pher reason  in  nearly  the  same  manner  and  even  use  the  same  terms; 
but  how  superior  is  the  example  urged  by  the  Apostle  to  Hercules  and 
Ulysses !"     Mrs.  Carter. 

"  The  story  of  Ulysses  asking  Nausicaa  and  her  maids  for  help  when 
he  was  cast  naked  on  the  land  is  in  the  Odyssey  vi.  127. 

"  Odyssey,  vi.  130. 

"  Manes  is  a  slave's  name.  Diogenes  had  a  slave  named  Manes,  his 
only  slave,  who  ran  away,  and  though  Diogenes  was  informed  where  the 
slave  was,  he  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  have  him  brought  back. 
He  said,  it  would  be  a  shame  if  Manes  could  live  without  Diogenes,  and 
Diogenes  could  not  live  without  Manes. 


BOOK  IV 

CHAPTER  I 

ABOUT    FREEDOM 

HE  is  free  who  lives  as  he  wishes  to  live  ;*  who  is  neither 
subject  to  compulsion  nor  to  hindrance,  nor  to  force; 
whose  movements  to  action  {opfiai)  are  not  impeded, 
whose  desires  attain  their  purpose,  and  who  does  not 
fall  into  that  which  he  would  2iwo\d{iKK\t6£ti dTCEpiitrooToi)- 
Who  then  chooses  to  live  in  error  ?  No  man.  Who  chooses  to 
live  deceived,  liable  to  mistake,  unjust,  unrestrained,  discon- 
tented, mean  ?  No  man.  Not  one  then  of  the  bad  lives  as 
he  wishes ;  nor  is  he  then  free.  And  who  chooses  to  live  in 
sorrow,  fear,  envy,  pity,  desiring  and  failing  in  his  desires, 
attempting  to  avoid  something  and  falling  into  it  ?  Not  one. 
Do  we  then  find  any  of  the  bad  free  from  sorrow,  free  from 
fear,  who  does  not  fall  into  that  which  he  would  avoid,  and 
does  not  obtain  that  which  he  wishes  ?  Not  one ;  nor  'then 
do  we  find  any  bad  man  f  ree.^ 

If  then  a  man  who  has  been  twice  consul  should  hear  this, 
if  you  add,  "But  you  are  a  wise  man;  this  is  nothing  to 
you ;"  he  will  pardon  you.  But  if  you  tell  him  the  truth,  and 
say,  "You  differ  not  at  all  from  those  who  have  been  thrice 
sold  as  to  being  yourself  not  a  slave,"  what  else  ought  you  to 
expect  than  blows  ?  For  he  says,  "What,  I  a  slave,  I  whose 
father  was  free,  whose  mother  was  free,  I  whom  no  man  can 
purchase:  I  am  also  of  senatorial  rank,  and  a  friend  of 
Caesar,  and  I  have  been  a  consul,  and  I  own  many  slaves." 
In  the  first  place,  most  excellent  senatorial  man,  perhaps  your 
father  also  was  a  slave  in  the  same  kind  of  servitude,  and 
your  mother,  and  your  grandfather  and  all  your  ancestors  in 
an  ascending  series.     But  even  if  they  were  as  free  as  it  is 

293 


294  EPICTETUS 

possible,  what  is  this  to  you  ?  What  if  they  were  of  a  noble 
nature,  and  you  of  a  mean  nature ;  if  they  were  fearless,  and 
you  a  coward ;  if  they  had  the  power  of  self-restraint,  and 
you  are  not  able  to  exercise  it. 

And  what,  you  may  say,  has  this  to  do  with  being  a  slave  ? 
Does  it  seem  to  you  to  be  nothing  to  do  a  thing  unwillingly, 
with  compulsion,  with  groans,  has  this  nothing  to  do  with 
being  a  slave  ?  It  is  something,  you  say :  but  who  is  able  to 
compel  me,  except  the  lord  of  all,  Caesar?  Then  even  you 
yourself  have  admitted  that  you  have  one  master.  But  that 
he  is  the  common  master  of  all,  as  you  say,  let  not  this  con- 
sole you  at  all :  but  know  that  you  are  a  slave  in  a  great  fam- 
ily. So  also  the  people  of  Nicopolis  are  used  to  exclaim, 
"By  the  fortune  of  Caesar,^  we  are  free." 

However,  if  you  please,  let  us  not  speak  of  Caesar  at  pres- 
ent. But  tell  me  this:  did  you  never  love  any  person,  a 
young  girl,  or  slave,  or  free?  What  then  is  this  with  respect 
to  being  a  slave  or  free?  Were  you  never  commanded  by 
the  person  beloved  to  do  something  which  you  did  not  wish 
to  do?  have  you  never  flattered  your  little  slave?  have  you 
never  kissed  her  feet  ?  And  yet  if  any  man  compelled  you  to 
kiss  Caesar's  feet,  you  would  think  it  an  insult  and  excessive 
tyranny.  What  else  then  is  slavery  ?  Did  you  never  go  out 
by  night  to  some  place  whither  you  did  not  wish  to  go,  did 
you  not  expend  what  you  did  not  wish  to  expend,  did  you  not 
utter  words  with  sighs  and  groans,  did  you  not  submit  to 
abuse  and  to  be  excluded?*  But  if  you  are  ashamed  to  con- 
fess your  own  acts,  see  what  Thrasonides'  says  and  does,  who 
having  seen  so  much  military  service  as  perhaps  not  even  you 
have,  first  of  all  went  out  by  night,  when  Geta  (a  slave)  does 
not  venture  out,  but  if  he  were  compelled  by  his  master,  would 
have  cried  out  much  and  would  have  gone  out  lamenting  his 
bitter  slavery.  Next,  what  does  Thrasonides  say?  "A 
worthless  girl  has  enslaved  me,  me  whom  no  enemy  ever  did. 
Unhappy  man,  who  are  the  slave  even  of  a  girl,  and  a  worth- 
less girl.  Why  then  do  you  still  call  yourself  free?  and  why 
do  you  talk  of  your  service  in  the  army  ?"  Then  he  calls  for 
a  sword  and  is  angry  with  him  who  out  of  kindness  refuses 
it ;  and  he  sends  presents  to  her  who  hates  him,  and  intreats 
and  weeps,  and  on  the  other  hand  having  had  a  little  success 


DISCOURSES  295 

he  is  elated.  But  even  then  how?  was  he  free  enough 
neither  to  desire  nor  to  fear  ? 

Now  consider  in  the  case  of  animals,  how  we  employ  the 
notion  of  liberty.  Men  keep  tame  lions  shut  up,  and  feed 
them,  and  some  take  them  about ;  and  who  will  say  that  this 
lion  is  free  ?®  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  the  more  he  lives  at  his 
ease,  so  much  the  more  he  is  in  a  slavish  condition  ?  and  who 
if  he  had  perception  and  reason  would  wish  to  be  one  of  these 
lions  ?  Well,  these  birds  when  they  are  caught  and  are  kept 
shut  up,  how  much  do  they  suffer  in  their  attempts  to  es- 
cape ?^  and  some  of  them  die  of  hunger  rather  than  submit  to 
such  a  kind  of  life.  And  as  many  of  them  as  live,  hardly 
live  and  with  suffering  pine  away ;  and  if  they  ever  find  any 
opening,  they  make  their  escape.  So  much  do  they  desire 
their  natural  liberty,  and  to  be  independent  and  free  from 
hindrance.  And  what  harm  is  there  to  you  in  this  ?  What 
do  you  say?  I  am  formed  by  nature  to  fly  where  I  choose, 
to  live  in  the  open  air,  to  sing  when  I  choose :  you  deprive  me 
of  all  this,  and  say,  what  harm  is  it  to  you  ?  For  this  reason 
we  shall  say  that  those  animals  only  are  free,  which  can  not 
endure  capture,  but  as  soon  as  they  are  caught,  escape  from 
captivity  by  death.  So  Diogenes  also  somewhere  says  that 
there  is  only  one  way  to  freedom,  and  that  is  to  die  content : 
and  he  writes  to  the  Persian  king,  "You  can  not  enslave 
the  Athenian  state  any  more  than  you  can  enslave  fishes." 
How  is  that?  can  not  I  catch  them?  If  you  catch  them,  says 
Diogenes,  they  will  immediately  leave  you,  as  fishes  do ;  for 
if  you  catch  a  fish,  it  dies ;  and  if  these  men  that  are  caught 
shall  die,  of  what  use  to  you  is  the  preparation  for  war? 
These  are  the  words  of  a  free  man  who  had  carefully  ex- 
amined the  thing,  and,  as  was  natural,  had  discovered  it. 
But  if  you  look  for  it  in  a  different  place  from  where  it  is, 
what  wonder  if  you  never  find  it? 

The  slave  wishes  to  be  set  free  immediately.  Why  ?  Do 
you  think  that  he  wishes  to  pay  money  to  the  collectors  of 
twentieths?*  No;  but  because  he  imagines  that  hitherto 
through  not  having  obtained  this,  he  is  hindered  and  unfor- 
tunate. If  I  shall  be  set  free,  immediately  it  is  all  happiness, 
I  care  for  no  man,  I  speak  to  all  as  an  equal  and  like  to  them, 
I  go  where  I  choose,  I  come  from  any  place  I  choose,  and  go 


296  EPICTETUS 

where  I  choose.  Then  he  is  set  free ;  and  forthwith  having 
no  place  where  he  can  eat,  he  looks  for  some  man  to  flatter, 
some  one  with  whom  he  shall  sup :  then  he  either  works  with 
his  body  or  endures  the  most  dreadful  things;^  and  if  he 
can  obtain  a  manger,  he  falls  into  a  slavery  much  worse  than 
his  former  slavery ;  or  even  if  he  is  become  rich,  being  a  man 
without  any  knowledge  of  what  is  good,  he  loves  some  little 
girl,  and  in  his  unhappiness  laments  and  desires  to  be  a  slave 
again.  He  says,  what  evil  did  I  suffer  in  my  state  of  slavery  ? 
Another  clothed  me,  another  supplied  me  with  shoes,  an- 
other fed  me,  another  looked  after  me  in  sickness;  and  I 
did  only  a  few  services  for  him.  But  now  a  wretched  man, 
what  things  I  suffer,  being  a  slave  to  many  instead  of  to  one. 
But  however,  he  says,  if  I  shall  acquire  rings,^*^  then  I  shall 
live  most  prosperously  and  happily.  First,  in  order  to  ac- 
quire these  rings,  he  submits  to  that  which  he  is  worthy  of ; 
then  when  he  has  acquired  them,  it  is  again  all  the  same. 
Then  he  says,  If  I  shall  be  engaged  in  military  service,  I  am 
free  from  all  evils.  He  obtains  military  service.  He  suffers 
as  much  as  a  flogged  slave,  and  nevertheless  he  asks  for  a 
second  service  and  a  third.  After  this,  when  he  has  put  the 
finishing  stroke  (the  colophon) ^^  to  his  career,  and  is  become 
a  senator,  then  he  becomes  a  slave  by  entering  into  the  as- 
sembly, then  he  serves  the  finer  and  most  splendid  slavery — 
not  to  be  a  fool,  but  to  learn  what  Socrates  taught,  what  is 
the  nature  of  each  thing  that  exists,  and  that  a  man  should 
not  rashly  adapt  preconceptions  {TtpoXr/ipeii )  to  the  several 
things  which  are.  For  this  is  the  cause  to  men  of  all  their 
evils,  they  not  being  able  to  adapt  the  general  preconceptions 
to  the  several  things.  But  we  have  different  opinions  (about 
the  cause  of  our  evils) .  One  man  thinks  that  he  is  sick :  not 
so  however,  but  the  fact  is  that  he  does  not  adapt  his  precon- 
ceptions right.  Another  thinks  that  he  is  poor ;  another  that 
he  has  a  severe  father  or  mother;  and  another  again  that 
Caesar  is  not  favourable  to  him.  But  all  this  is  one  and  only 
one  thing,  the  not  knowing  how  to  adapt  the  preconceptions. 
For  who  has  not  a  preconception  of  that  which  is  bad,  that  it 
is  hurtful,  that  it  ought  to  be  avoided,  that  it  ought  in  every 
way  to  be  guarded  against?  One  preconception  is  not  re- 
pugnant to  another,  only  where  it  comes  to  the  matter  of  ad- 


DISCOURSES  297 

aptation.  What  then  is  this  evil,  which  is  both  hurtful,  and 
a  thing  to  be  avoided  ?  He  answers  not  to  be  Caesar's  friend, 
— He  is  gone  far  from  the  mark,  he  has  missed  the  adapta- 
tion, he  is  embarrassed,  he  seeks  the  things  which  are  not  at 
all  pertinent  to  the  matter;  for  when  he  has  succeeded  in 
being  Caesar's  friend,  nevertheless  he  has  failed  in  finding 
what  he  sought.  For  what  is  that  which  every  man  seeks? 
To  live  secure,  to  be  happy,  to  do  every  thing  as  he  wishes, 
not  to  be  hindered,  nor  compelled.  When  then  he  is  become 
the  friend  of  Caesar,  is  he  free  from  hindrance?  free  from 
compulsion,  is  he  tranquil,  is  he  happy  ?  Of  whom  shall  we 
inquire  ?  What  more  trustworthy  witness  have  we  than  this 
very  man  who  is  become  Caesar's  friend?  Come  forward 
and  tell  us  when  did  you  sleep  more  quietly,  now  or  before 
you  became  Caesar's  friend  ?  Immediately  you  hear  the  an- 
swer, "Stop,  I  entreat  you,  and  do  not  mock  me :  you  know 
not  what  miseries  I  suffer,  and  sleep  does  not  come  to  me; 
but  one  comes  and  says,  'Caesar  is  already  awake,  he  is  now 
going  forth;'  then  come  troubles  and  cares." — Well,  when 
did  you  sup  with  more  pleasure,  now  or  before  ?  Hear  what 
he  says  about  this  also.  He  says  that  if  he  is  not  invited,  he  is 
pained :  and  if  he  is  invited,  he  sups  like  a  slave  with  his  mas- 
ter, all  the  while  being  anxious  that  he  does  not  say  or  do  any 
thing  foolish.  And  what  do  you  suppose  that  he  is  afraid 
of ;  lest  he  should  be  lashed  like  a  slave  ?  How  can  he  expect 
any  thing  so  good?  No,  but  as  befits  so  great  a  man, 
Caesar's  friend,  he  is  afraid  that  he  may  lose  his  head.  And 
when  did  you  bathe  more  free  from  trouble,  and  take  your 
gymnastic  exercise  more  quietly?  In  fine,  which  kind  of 
life  did  you  prefer?  your  present  or  your  former  life?  I 
can  swear  that  no  man  is  so  stupid  or  so  ignorant  of  truth  as 
not  to  bewail  his  own  misfortunes  the  nearer  he  is  in  friend- 
ship to  Caesar. 

Since  then  neither  those  who  are  called  kings  live  as  they 
choose,  nor  the  friends  of  kings,  who  finally  are  those  who 
are  free  ?  Seek,  and  you  will  find ;  for  you  have  aids  from 
nature  for  the  discovery  of  truth.  But  if  you  are  not  able 
yourself  by  going  along  these  ways  only  to  discover  that 
which  follows,  listen  to  those  who  have  made  the  inquiry. 

What  do  they  say  ?  Does  freedom  seem  to  you  a  good  thing? 
20 


298  EPICTETUS 

The  greatest  good.  Is  it  possible  then  that  he  who  obtains 
the  greatest  good  can  be  unhappy  or  fare  badly?  No. 
Whomsoever  then  you  shall  see  unhappy,  unfortunate,  la- 
menting, confidently  declare  that  they  are  not  free.  I  do 
declare  it.  We  have  now  then  got  away  from  buying  and 
selling  and  from  such  arrangements  about  matters  of  prop- 
erty :  for  if  you  have  rightly  assented  to  these  matters,  if  the 
great  king  (the  Persian  king)  is  unhappy,  he  can  not  be  free, 
nor  can  a  little  king,  nor  a  man  of  consular  rank,  nor  one  who 
has  been  twice  consul. — Be  it  so. 

Further  then  answer  me  this  question  also,  does  freedom 
seem  to  you  to  be  something  great  and  noble  and  valuable? 
— How  should  it  not  seem  so?  Is  it  possible  then  when  a 
man  obtains  anything  so  great  and  valuable  and  noble  to  be 
mean  ? — It  is  not  possible. — When  then  you  see  any  man  sub- 
ject to  another  or  flattering  him  contrary  to  his  own  opinion, 
confidently  affirm  that  this  man  also  is  not  free ;  and  not  only 
if  he  do  this  for  a  bit  of  supper,  but  also  if  he  does  it  for  a 
government  (province)  or  a  consulship :  and  call  these  men 
little  slaves  who  for  the  sake  of  little  matters  do  these  things, 
and  those  who  do  so  for  the  sake  of  great  things  call  great 
slaves,  as  they  deserve  to  be. — This  is  admitted  also. — Do  you 
think  that  freedom  is  a  thing  independent  and  self  govern- 
ing?— Certainly. — Whomsoever  then  it  is  in  the  power  of 
another  to  hinder  and  compel,  declare  that  he  is  not  free. 
And  do  not  look,  I  entreat  you,  after  his  grandfathers  and 
great  grandfathers,  or  inquire  about  his  being  bought  or 
sold ;  but  if  you  hear  him  saying  from  his  heart  and  with  feel- 
ing, "Master,"  even  if  the  twelve  fasces  precede  him  (as  con- 
sul), call  him  a  slave.  And  if  you  hear  him  say,  "Wretch 
that  I  am,  how  much  I  sufifer,"  call  him  a  slave.  If  finally 
you  see  him  lamenting,  complaining,  unhappy,  call  him  a 
slave  though  he  wears  a  prsetexta.  If  then  he  is  doing 
nothing  of  this  kind,  do  not  yet  say  that  he  is  free,  but  learn 
his  opinions,  whether  they  are  subject  to  compulsion,  or  may 
produce  hindrance,  or  to  bad  fortune;  and  if  you  find  him 
such,  call  him  a  slave  who  has  a  holiday  in  the  Saturnalia  :^^ 
say  that  his  master  is  from  home :  he  will  return  soon,  and 
you  will  know  what  he  suffers.  Who  will  return  ?  Whoever 
has  in  himself  the  power  over  anything  which  is  desired  by 


DISCOURSES  i299 

the  man,  either  to  give  it  to  him  or  to  take  it  away  ?  Thus 
then  have  we  many  masters?  We  have:  for  we  have  cir- 
cumstances as  masters  prior  to  our  present  masters ;  and  these 
circumstances  are  many.  Therefore  it  must  of  necessity  be 
that  those  who  have  the  power  over  any  of  these  circum- 
.  stances  must  be  our  masters.  For  no  man  fears  Caesar  him- 
self, but  he  fears  death,  banishment,  deprivation  of  his  prop- 
erty, prison,  and  disgrace.  Nor  does  any  man  love  Caesar, 
unless  Caesar  is  a  person  of  great  merit,  but  he  loves  wealth, 
the  office  of  tribune,  praetor  or  consul.  When  we  love, 
and  hate  and  fear  these  things,  it  must  be  that  those  who 
have  the  power  over  them  must  be  our  masters.  Therefore 
we  adore  them  even  as  gods;  for  we  think  that  what  pos- 
sesses the  power  of  conferring  the  greatest  advantage  on  us 
is  divine.  Then  we  wrongly  assume  {vTcordddojusv)  that  a  cer- 
tain person  has  the  power  of  conferring  the  greatest  advan- 
tages ;  therefore  he  is  something  divine.  For  if  we  wrongly 
assume  that  a  certain  person  has  the  power  of  conferring  the 
greatest  advantages,  it  is  a  necessary  consequence  that  the 
conclusion  from  these  premises  must  be  false. 

What  then  is  that  which  makes  a  man  free  from  hindrance 
and  makes  him  his  own  master?  For  wealth  does  not  do 
it,  nor  consulship,  nor  provincial  government,  nor  royal 
power ;  but  something  else  must  be  discovered.  What  then 
is  that  which  when  we  write  makes  us  free  from  hindrance 
and  unimpeded?  The  knowledge  of  the  art  of  writing. 
What  then  is  it  in  playing  the  lute  ?  The  science  of  playing 
the  lute.  Therefore  in  life  also  it  is  the  science  of  life.  You 
have  then  heard  in  a  general  way :  but  examine  the  thing  also 
in  the  several  parts.  Is  it  possible  that  he  who  desires  any  of 
the  things  which  depend  on  others  can  be  free  from  hin- 
drance ?  No — Is  it  possible  for  him  to  be  unimpeded  ?  No 
— Therefore  he  can  not  be  free.  Consider  then ;  whether  we 
have  nothing  which  is  in  our  own  power  only,  or  whether 
we  have  all  things,  or  whether  some  things  are  in  our  own 
power,  and  others  in  the  power  of  others. — What  do  you 
mean? — When  you  wish  the  body  to  be  entire  (sound),  is  it 
in  your  power  or  not? — It  is  not  in  my  power — When  you 
wish  it  to  be  healthy  ? — Neither  is  this  in  my  power. — When 
you  wish  it  to  be  handsome? — Nor  is  this — Life  or  death? — 


300 


EPICTETUS 


Neither  is  this  in  my  power.^^ — Your  body  then  is  another's, 
subject  to  every  man  who  is  stronger  than  yourself? — It  is. 
— But  your  estate,  is  it  in  your  power  to  have  it  when  you 
please,  and  as  long  as  you  please,  and  such  as  you  please? — 
No. — And  your  slaves? — No. — And  your  clothes? — No. — 
And  your  house? — No. — And  your  horses? — Not  one  of 
these  things. — And  if  you  wish  by  all  means  your  children  to 
live,  or  your  wife,  or  your  brother,  or  your  friends,  is  it  in 
your  power  ? — This  also  is  not  in  my  power. 

Whether  then  have  you  nothing  which  is  in  your  own 
power,  which  depends  on  yourself  only  and  can  not  be  taken 
from  you,  or  have  you  any  thing  of  the  kind  ? — I  know  not. 
— Look  at  the  thing  then  thus,  and  examine  it.  Is  any  man 
able  to  make  you  assent  to  that  which  is  false  ?^^ — No  man. — 
In  the  matter  of  assent  then  you  are  free  from  hindrance  and 
obstruction  ? — Granted. — Well ;  and  can  a  man  force  you  to 
desire  to  move  towards  that  to  which  you  do  not  choose  ? — 
He  can,  for  when  he  threatens  me  with  death  or  bonds,  he 
compels  me  to  desire  to  move  towards  it.  If  then,  you  de- 
spise death  and  bonds,  do  you  still  pay  any  regard  to  him  ? — 
No. — Is  then  the  despising  of  death  an  act  of  your  own  or  is 
it  not  yours  ? — It  is  my  act. — Is  it  your  own  act  then  also  to 
desire  to  move  towards  a  thing :  or  is  it  not  so  ? — It  is  my 
own  act. — But  to  desire  to  move  away  from  a  thing,  whose 
act  is  that  ?  This  also  is  your  act. — What  then  if  I  have  at- 
tempted to  walk,  suppose  another  should  hinder  me  ? — What 
part  of  you  does  he  hinder?  does  he  hinder  the  faculty  of 
assent  ? — No :  but  my  poor  body. — Yes,  as  he  would  do  with 
a  stone. — Granted;  but  I  no  longer  walk. — And  who  told 
you  that  walking  is  your  own  act  free  from  hindrance  ?  for  I 
said  that  this  only  was  free  from  hindrance,  to  desire  to 
move :  but  where  there  is  need  of  body  and  its  co-operation, 
you  have  heard  long  ago  that  nothing  is  your  own. — Granted 
this  also. — And  who  can  compel  you  to  desire  what  you  do 
not  wish  ? — No  man. — And  to  propose  or  intend,  or  in  short 
to  make  use  of  the  appearances  which  present  themselves, 
can  any  man  compel  you  ? — He  can  not  do  this :  but  he  will 
hinder  me  when  I  desire  from  obtaining  what  I  desire. — If 
you  desire  any  thing  which  is  your  own,  and  one  of  these 
things  which  can  not  be  hindered,  how  will  he  hinder  you  ? — 


DISCOURSES  301 

He  can  not  in  any  way. — Who  then  tells  you  that  he  who 
desires  the  things  that  belong  to  another  is  free  from  hin- 
drance ? 

Must  I  then  not  desire  health?  By  no  means,  nor  any 
thing  else  that  belongs  to  another :  for  what  is  not  in  your 
power  to  acquire  or  to  keep  when  you  please,  this  belongs  to 
another.  Keep  then  far  from  it  not  only  your  hands,  but 
more  than  that,  even  your  desires.  If  you  do  not,  you  have 
surrendered  yourself  as  a  slave;  you  have  subjected  your 
neck,  if  you  admire^*^  any  thing  not  your  own,  to  every  thing 
that  is  dependent  on  the  power  of  others  and  perishable,  to 
which  you  have  conceived  a  liking. — Is  not  my  hand  myown? 
— It  is  a  part  of  your  own  body ;  but  it  is  by  nature  earth, 
subject  to  hindrance,  compulsion,  and  the  slave  of  every  thing 
which  is  stronger.  And  why  do  I  say  your  hand?  You 
ought  to  possess  your  whole  body  as  a  poor  ass  loaded,  as 
long  as  it  is  possible,  as  long  as  you  are  allowed.  But  if  there 
be  a  press,^^  and  a  soldier  should  lay  hold  of  it,  let  it  go,  do 
not  resist,  nor  murmur ;  if  you  do,  you  will  receive  blows,  and 
never  the  less  you  will  lose  the  ass.  But  when  you  ought  to 
feel  thus  with  respect  to  the  body,  consider  what  remains  to 
be  done  about  all  the  rest,  which  is  provided  for  the  sake  of 
the  body.  When  the  body  is  an  ass,  all  the  other  things  are 
bits  belonging  to  the  ass,  pack-saddles,  shoes,^"^  barley,  fod- 
der. Let  these  also  go :  get  rid  of  them  quicker  and  more 
readily  than  of  the  ass. 

When  you  have  made  this  preparation,  and  have  practised 
this  discipline,  to  distinguish  that  which  belongs  to  another 
from  that  which  is  your  own,  the  things  which  are  subject  to 
hindrance  from  those  which  are  not,  to  consider  the  things 
free  from  hindrance  to  concern  yourself,  and  those  which  are 
not  free  not  to  concern  yourself,  to  keep  your  desire  steadily 
fixed  to  the  things  which  do  concern  yourself,  and  turned 
from  the  things  which  do  not  concern  yourself ;  do  you  still 
fear  any  man  ?  No  one.  For  about  what  will  you  be  afraid  ? 
about  the  things  which  are  your  own,  in  which  consists  the 
nature  of  good  and  evil?  and  who  has  power  over  these 
things?  who  can  take  them  away?  who  can  impede  them? 
No  man  can,  no  more  that  he  can  impede  God.  But  will  you 
be  afraid  about  your  body  and  your  possessions,  about  things 


302  EPICTETUS 

which  are  not  yours,  about  things  which  in  no  way  concern 
you  ?  and  what  else  have  you  been  studying  from  the  begin- 
ning than  to  distinguish  between  your  own  and  not  your 
own,  the  things  which  are  in  your  power  and  not  in  your 
power,  the  things  subject  to  hindrance  and  not  subject?  and 
why  have  you  come  to  the  philosophers  ?  was  it  that  you  may 
never  the  less  be  unfortunate  and  unhappy  ?  You  will  then  in 
this  way,  as  I  have  supposed  you  to  have  done,  be  without 
fear  and  disturbance.  And  what  is  grief  to  you?  for  fear 
comes  from  what  you  expect,  but  grief  from  that  which  is 
present.  But  what  further  will  you  desire  ?  For  of  the  things 
which  are  within  the  power  of  the  will,  as  being  good  and 
present,  you  have  a  proper  and  regulated  desire :  but  of  the 
things  which  are  not  in  the  power  of  the  will  you  do  not 
desire  any  one,  and  so  you  do  not  allow  any  place  to  that 
which  is  irrational,  and  impatient,  and  above  measure  hasty. 
When  then  you  are  thus  affected  towards  things,  what  man 
can  any  longer  be  formidable  to  you  ?  For  what  has  a  man 
which  is  formidable  to  another,  either  when  you  see 
him  or  speak  to  him  or  finally  are  conversant  with  him  ?  Not 
more  than  one  horse  has  with  respect  to  another,  or  one  dog 
to  another,  or  one  bee  to  another  bee.  Things  indeed  are 
formidable  to  every  man ;  and  when  any  man  is  able  to  con- 
fer these  things  on  another  or  to  take  them  away,  then  he  too 
becomes  formidable.  How  then  is  an  acropolis  (a  stronghold 
or  fortress,  the  seat  of  tyranny)  demolished?  Not  by  the 
sword,  not  by  fire,  but  by  opinion.  For  if  we  abolish  the 
acropolis  which  is  in  the  city,  can  we  abolish  also  that  of  fe- 
ver, and  that  of  beautiful  women  ?  Can  we  in  a  word  abolish 
the  acropolis  which  is  in  us  and  cast  out  the  tyrants  within 
us,  whom  we  have  daily  over  us,  sometimes  the  same  tyrants, 
at  other  times  different  tyrants  ?  But  with  this  we  must  be- 
gin, and  with  this  we  must  demolish  the  acropolis  and  eject 
the  tyrants,  by  giving  up  the  body,  the  parts  of  it,  the  facul- 
ties of  it,  the  possessions,  the  reputation,  magisterial  offices, 
honours,  children,  brothers,  friends,  by  considering  all  these 
things  as  belonging  to  others.  And  if  tyrants  have  been 
ejected  from  us,  why  do  I  still  shut  in  the  acropolis  by  a  wall 
of  circumvallation,^®  at  least  on  my  account;  for  if  it  still 
stands,  what  does  it  do  to  me?  why  do  I  still  eject  (the  ty- 


DISCOURSES  303 

rant's)  guards?  For  where  do  I  perceive  them?  against  oth- 
ers they  have  their  fasces,  and  their  spears  and  their  swords. 
But  I  have  never  been  hindered  in  my  will,  nor  compelled 
when  I  did  not  will.  And  how  is  this  possible?  I  have  placed 
my  movements  towards  action  {opixrfv)  in  obedience  to 
God.^®  Is  it  his  will  that  I  shall  have  fever?  It  is  my  will 
also.  Is  it  his  will  that  I  should  move  towards  any  thing? 
It  is  my  will  also.  Is  it  his  will  that  I  should  obtain  any 
thing?  It  is  my  wish  also.^®  Does  he  not  will?  I  do  not 
wish.  Is  it  his  will  that  I  die,  is  it  his  will  that  I  be  put  to  the 
rack  ?  It  is  my  will  then  to  die :  it  is  my  will  then  to  be  put  to 
the  rack.  Who  then  is  still  able  to  hinder  me  contrary  to  my 
own  judgment,  or  to  compel  me?  No  more  than  he  can  hin- 
der or  compel  Zeus. 

Thus  the  more  cautious  of  travellers  also  act.  A  traveller 
has  heard  that  the  road  is  infested  by  robbers;  he  does  not 
venture  to  enter  on  it  alone,  but  he  waits  for  the  companion- 
ship on  the  road  either  of  an  ambassador,  or  of  a  quaestor, 
or  of  a  proconsul,  and  when  he  has  attached  himself  to  such 
persons  he  goes  along  the  road  safely.  So  in  the  world^^  the 
wise  man  acts.  There  are  many  companies  of  robbers,  ty- 
rants, storms,  difficulties,  losses  of  that  which  is  dearest. 
Where  is  there  any  place  of  refuge  ?  how  shall  he  pass  along 
without  being  attacked  by  robbers?  what  company  shall  he 
wait  for  that  he  may  pass  along  in  safety  ?  to  whom  shall  he 
attach  himself  ?  To  what  person  generally  ?  to  the  rich  man, 
to  the  man  of  consular  rank?  and  what  is  the  use  of  that  to 
me?  Such  a  man  is  stripped  himself,  groans  and  laments. 
But  what  if  the  fellow  companion  himself  turns  against  me 
and  becomes  my  robber,  what  shall  I  do  ?  I  will  be  a  friend  of 
Caesar:  when  I  am  Caesar's  companion  no  man  will  wrong 
me.  In  the  first  place,  that  1  may  become  illustrious,  what 
things  must  I  endure  and  suffer?  how  often  and  by  how 
many  must  I  be  robbed  ?  Then,  if  I  become  Caesar's  friend, 
he  also  is  mortal.  And  if  Caesar  from  any  circumstance  be- 
comes my  enemy,  where  is  it  best  for  me  to  retire?  Into  a 
desert?  Well,  does  fever  not  come  there?  What  shall  be  done 
then  ?  Is  it  not  possible  to  find  a  safe  fellow  traveller,  a  faith- 
ful one,  strong,  secure  against  all  surprises  ?  Thus  he  consid- 


304  EPICTETUS 

ers  and  perceives  that  if  he  attaches  himself  to  Ciod,  he  will 
make  his  journey  in  safety. 

How  do  you  understand,  "attaching  yourself  to  God?"  In 
this  sense,  that  whatever  God  wills,  a  man  also  shall  will ;  and 
what  God  does  not  will,  a  man  also  shall  not  will.  How  then 
shall  this  be  done  ?  In  what  other  way  than  by  examining  the 
movements  ( 6pjj.di,  the  acts)  of  God^^  and  his  administra- 
tion ?  What  has  he  given  to  me  as  my  own  and  in  my  own 
power  ?  what  has  he  reserved  to  himself  ?  He  has  given  to  me 
the  things  which  are  in  the  power  of  the  will  (rd  npoaipsviKa :) 
he  has  put  them  in  my  power  free  from  impediment  and 
hindrance.  How  was  he  able  to  make  the  earthly  body  free 
from  hindrance?  [He  could  not],  and  accordingly  he  has 
subjected  to  the  revolution  of  the  whole  ( rff  r&v  oXoov  icep- 
toioSY^  possessions,  household  things,  house,  children, 
wife.  Why  then  do  I  fight  against  God?  why  do  I  will  what 
does  not  depend  on  the  will  ?  why  do  I  will  to  have  absolutely 
what  is  not  granted  to  me  ?  But  how  ought  I  to  will  to  have 
things  ?  In  the  way  in  which  they  are  given  and  as  long  as 
they  are  given.  But  he  who  has  given  takes  away.^*  Why 
then  do  I  resist?  I  do  not  say  that  I  shall  be  a  fool  if  I  use 
force  to  one  who  is  stronger,  but  I  shall  first  be  unjust.  For 
whence  had  I  things  when  I  came  into  the  world? — My 
father  gave  them  to  me. — And  who  gave  them  to  him  ?  and 
who  made  the  sun?  and  who  made  the  fruits  of  the  earth? 
and  who  the  seasons?  and  who  made  the  connection  of  men 
with  one  another  and  their  fellowship  ? 

Then  after  receiving  everything  from  another  and  even 
yourself,  are  you  angry  and  do  you  blame  the  giver  if  he 
takes  any  thing  from  you?  Who  are  you,  and  for  what  pur- 
pose did  you  come  into  the  world?  Did  not  he  (God)  intro- 
duce you  here,  did  he  not  show  you  the  light,  did  he  not  give 
you  fellow  workers,  and  perceptions  and  reason?  and  as 
whom  did  he  introduce  you  here?  did  he  not  introduce 
you  as  subject  to  death,  and  as  one  to  live  on  earth 
with  a  little  flesh,  and  to  observe  his  administra- 
tion, and  to  join  with  him  in  the  spectacle  and  the 
festival  for  a  short  time?  Will  you  not  then,  as  long 
as  you  have  been  permitted,  after  seeing  the  spectacle 
and  the  solemnity,  when  he  leads  you  out,  go  with  adoration 


DISCOURSES  305 

of  him  and  thanks  for  what  you  have  heard  and  seen  ? — No ; 
but  I  would  still  enjoy  the  feast. — The  initiated  too  would 
wish  to  be  longer  in  the  initiation :  ^^  and  perhaps  also  those 
at  Olympia  to  see  other  athletes ;  but  the  solemnity  is  ended : 
go  away  like  a  grateful  and  modest  man ;  make  room  for  oth- 
ers :  others  also  must  be  born,  as  you  were,  and  being  born 
they  must  have  a  place,  and  houses  and  necessary  things.  And 
if  the  first  do  not  retire,  what  remains  ?  Why  are  you  insatia- 
ble? Why  are  you  not  content?  why  do  you  contract  the 
world? — Yes,  but  I  would  have  my  little  children  with  me 
and  my  wife. — What,  are  they  yours  ?  do  they  not  belong  to 
the  giver,  and  to  him  who  made  you?  then  will  you  not 
give  up  what  belongs  to  others?  will  you  not  give  way  to 
him  who  is  superior? — Why  then  did  he  introduce  me  into 
the  world  on  these  conditions? — And  if  the  conditions  do  not 
suit  you,  depart.^®  He  has  no  need  of  a  spectator  who  is  not 
satisfied.  He  wants  those  who  join  in  the  festival,  those  who 
take  part  in  the  chorus,  that  they  may  rather  applaud,  adr 
mire,  and  celebrate  with  hymns  the  solemnity.  But  those  who 
can  bear  no  trouble,  and  the  cowardly  he  will  not  unwillingly 
see  absent  from  the  great  assembly  (Ttavrfyvpti)  ;  for  they 
did  not  when  thev  were  present  behave  as  they  ought  to  do 
at  a  festival  nor  fill  up  their  place  properly,  but  they  lamented, 
found  fault  with  the  deity,  fortune,  their  companions;  not 
seeing  both  what  they  had,  and  their  own  powers,  which  they 
received  for  contrary  purposes,  the  powers  of  magnanimity, 
of  a  generous  mind,  manly  spirit,  and  what  we  are  now  in- 
quiring about,  freedom. — For  what  purpose  then  have  I  re- 
ceived these  things? — To  use  them. — How  long? — So  long 
as  he  who  has  lent  them  chooses. — What  if  they  are  neces- 
sary to  me? — Do  not  attach  yourself  to  them  and  they  will 
not  be  necessary :  do  not  say  to  yourself  that  they  are  neces- 
sary, and  then  they  are  not  necessary. 

This  study  you  ought  to  practise  from  morning  to  even- 
ing, beginning  with  the  smallest  things  and  those  most  liable 
to  damage,  with  an  earthen  pot,  with  a  cup.  Then  proceed  in 
this  way  to  a  tunic,  to  a  little  dog,  to  a  horse,  to  a  small  es- 
tate in  land :  then  to  yourself,  to  your  body,  to  the  parts  of 
your  body,  to  your  children,  to  your  wife,  to  your  brothers. 
Look  all  round  and  throw  these  things  from  you  (which  are 


306  EPICTETUS 

not  yours).  Purge  your  opinions,  so  that  nothing  cleave  to 
you  of  the  things  which  are  not  your  own,  that  nothing  grow 
to  you,  that  nothing  give  you  pain  when  it  is  torn  from  you ; 
and  say,  while  you  are  daily  exercising  yourself  as  you  do 
there  (in  the  school),  not  that  you  are  philosophizing,  for 
this  is  an  arrogant  (offensive)  expression,  but  that  you  are 
presenting  an  asserter  of  freedom :  for  this  is  really  freedom. 
To  this  freedom  Diogenes  was  called  by  Antisthenes,  and  he 
said  that  he  could  no  longer  be  enslaved  by  any  man.  For 
this  reason  when  he  was  taken  prisoner,  how  did  he  behave 
to  the  pirates  ?  Did  he  call  any  of  them  master  ?  and  I  do  not 
speak  of  the  name,  for  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  word,  but  of 
the  state  of  mind,  by  which  the  word  is  produced.  How  did 
he  reprove  them  for  feeding  badly  their  captives  ?  How  was 
he  sold?  Did  he  seek  a  master?  no;  but  a  slave.  And  when 
he  was  sold  how  did  he  behave  to  his  master  T^''  Immediately 
he  disputed  with  him  and  said  to  his  master  that  he  ought 
jiot  to  be  dressed  as  he  was,  nor  shaved  in  such  a  manner ;  and 
about  the  children  he  told  them  how  he  ought  to  bring  them 
up.  And  what  was  strange  in  this?  for  if  his  master  had 
boug'ht  an  exercise  master,  would  he  have  employed  him  in 
the  exercises  of  the  palaestra  as  a  servant  or  as  a  master  ?  and 
so  if  he  had  bought  a  physician  or  an  architect.  And  so  in  ev- 
ery matter,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  he  who  has  skill 
must  be  the  superior  of  him  who  has  not.  Whoever  then  gen- 
erally possesses  the  science  of  life,  what  else  must  he  be  than 
master  ?  For  who  is  master  in  a  ship  ?  The  man  who  governs 
the  helm  ?  Why  ?  Because  he  who  will  not  obey  him  suffers 
for  it.  But  a  master  can  give  me  stripes.  Can  he  do  it  then 
without  suffering  for  it  ?  So  I  also  used  to  think.  But  because 
he  can  not  do  it  without  suffering  for  it,  for  this  reason  it  is 
not  in  his  power:  and  no  man  can  do  what  is  unjust  without 
suffering  for  it.  And  what  is  the  penalty  for  him  who  puts  his 
own  slave  in  chains?  what  do  you  think  that  is?  The  fact 
of  putting  the  slave  in  chains : — and  you  also  will  admit  this, 
if  you  choose  to  maintain  the  truth,  that  man  is  not  a  wild 
beast,  but  a  tame  animal.  For  when  is  a  vine  doing  badly? 
When  it  is  in  a  condition  contrary  to  its  nature.  When  is  a 
cock  ?  Just  the  same.  Therefore  a  man  also  is  so.  What  then 
is  a  man's  nature  ?  To  bite,  to  kick,  and  to  throw  into  prison 


DISCOURSES  307 

and  to  behead  ?  No ;  but  to  do  good,  to  co-operate  with  oth- 
ers, to  wish  them  well.  At  that  time  then  he  is  in  a  bad  condi- 
tion, whether  you  choose  to  admit  it  or  not,  when  he  is  acting 
foolishly. 

Socrates  then  did  not  fare  badly? — No ;  but  his  judges  and 
his  accusers  did. — Nor  did  Helvidius  at  Rome  fare  badly  ? — 
No;  but  his  murderer  did.  How  do  you  mean? — The  same 
as  you  do  when  you  say  that  a  cock  has  not  fared  badly  when 
he  has  gained  the  victory  and  been  severely  wounded;  but 
that  the  cock  has  fared  badly  when  he  has  been  defeated  and 
is  unhurt :  nor  do  you  call  a  dog  fortunate,  who  neither  pur- 
sues game  nor  labours,  but  when  you  see  him  sweating,** 
when  you  see  him  in  pain  and  panting  violently  after  run- 
ning. What  paradox  (unusual  thing)  do  we  utter  if  we  say 
that  the  evil  in  every  thing  is  that  which  is  contrary  to  the  na- 
ture of  the  thing?  Is  this  a  paradox?  for  do  you  not  say 
this  in  the  case  of  all  other  things  ?  Why  then  in  the  case  of 
man  only  do  you  think  differently  ?  But  because  we  say  that 
the  nature  of  man  is  tame  (gentle)  and  social  and  faithful, 
you  will  not  say  that  this  is  a  paradox?  It  is  not. — What 
then,  is  it  a  paradox  to  say  that  a  man  is  not  hurt  when  he  is 
whipped,  or  put  in  chains,  or  beheaded  ?  does  he  not,  if  he  suf- 
fers nobly,  come  off  even  with  increased  advantage  and 
profit  ?  But  is  he  not  hurt  who  suffers  in  a  most  pitiful  and 
disgraceful  way,  who  in  place  of  a  man  becomes  a  wolf,  or 
viper,  or  wasp  ? 

Well  then,  let  us  recapitulate  the  things  which  have  been 
agreed  on.  The  man  who  is  not  under  restraint  is  free,  to 
whom  things  are  exactly  in  that  state  in  which  he  wishes 
them  to  be;  but  he  who  can  be  restrained  or  compelled  or 
hindered,  or  thrown  into  any  circumstances  against  his  will, 
is  a  slave.  But  who  is  free  from  restraint  ?  He  who  desires 
nothing  that  belongs  to  (is  in  the  power  of)  others.  And 
what  are  the  things  which  belong  to  others  ?  Those  which 
are  not  in  our  power  either  to  have  or  not  to  have,  or  to  have 
of  a  certain  kind  or  in  a  certain  manner.*®  Therefore  the 
body  belongs  to  another,  the  parts  of  the  body  belong  to  an- 
other, possession  (property)  belongs  to  another.  If  then 
you  are  attached  to  any  of  these  things  as  your  own,  you  will 
pay  the  penalty  which  it  is  proper  for  him  to  pay  who  desires 


3o8  EPICTETUS 

what  belongs  to  another.  This  road  leads  to  freedom,  this  is 
the  only  way  of  escaping  from  slavery,  to  be  able  to  say  at 
last  with  all  your  soul 

"Lead  me,  O  Zeus,  and  thou  O  destiny. 
The  way  that  I  am  bid  by  you  to  go." 

But  what  do  you  say,  philosopher  ?  The  tyrant  summons  you 
to  say  something  which  does  not  become  you.  Do  you  say  it 
or  do  you  not?  Answer  me. — Let  me  consider. — Will  you 
consider  now  ?  But  when  you  were  in  the  school,  what  was  it 
which  you  used  to  consider  ?  Did  you  not  study  what  are  the 
things  that  are  good  and  what  are  bad,  and  what  things  are 
neither  one  nor  the  other? — I  did. — What  then  was  our  opin- 
ion ? — That  just  and  honourable  acts  were  good ;  and  that  un- 
just and  disgraceful  (foul)  acts  were  bad. — Is  life  a  good 
thing? — No. — Is  death  a  bad  thing? — No. — Is  prison? — 
No. — But  what  did  we  think  about  mean  and  faith- 
less words  and  betrayal  of  a  friend  and  flattery  of  a  tyrant? 
— That  they  are  bad. — Well  then,  you  are  not  considering, 
nor  have  you  considered  nor  deliberated.  For  what  is  the 
matter  for  consideration ;  is  it  whether  it  is  becoming  for  me, 
when  I  have  it  in  my  power,  to  secure  for  myself  the  greatest 
of  good  things,  and  not  to  secure  for  myself  (that  is,  not  to 
avoid)  the  greatest  evils?  A  fine  inquiry  indeed,  and  nec- 
essary, and  one  that  demands  much  deliberation.  Man,  why 
do  you  mock  us?  Such  an  inquiry  is  never  made.  If  you 
really  imagined  that  base  things  were  bad  and  honourable 
things  were  good,  and  that  all  other  things  were  nehher  good 
nor  bad,  you  would  not  even  have  approached  this  inquiry 
nor  have  come  near  it ;  but  immediately  you  would  have  been 
able  to  distinguish  them  by  the  understanding  as  you  would 
do  (in  other  cases)  by  the  vision.  For  when  do  you  inquire 
if  black  things  are  white,  if  heavy  things  are  light,  and  do  not 
comprehend  the  manifest  evidence  of  the  senses  ?  How  then 
do  you  now  say  that  you  are  considering  whether  things 
which  are  neither  good  nor  bad  ought  to  be  avoided  more 
than  things  which  are  bad?  But  you  do  not  possess  these 
opinions;  and  neither  do  these  things  seem  to  you  to  be 
neither  good  nor  bad,  but  you  think  that  they  are  the  great- 
est evils;  nor  do  you  think  those  other  things  (mean  and 


DISCOURSES  309 

faithless  words,  etc.)  to  be  evils,  but  matters  which  do  not 
concern  us  at  all.  For  thus  from  the  beginning  you  have 
accustomed  yourself.  Where  am  1  ?  In  the  schools :  and  are 
any  listening  to  me  ?  I  am  discoursing  among  philosophers. 
But  I  have  gone  out  of  the  school.  Away  with  this  talk  of 
scholars  and  fools.  Thus  a  friend  is  overpowered  by  the 
testimony  of  a  philosopher  :^®  thus  a  philosopher  becomes  a 
parasite;  thus  he  lets  himself  for  hire  for  money:  thus  in  the 
senate  a  man  does  not  say  what  he  thinks:  in  private  (in  the 
school)  he  proclaims  his  opinions.^*  You  are  a  cold  and  mis- 
erable little  opinion,  suspended  from  idle  words  as  from  a 
hair.  But  keep  yourself  strong  and  fit  for  the  uses  of  life  and 
initiated  by  being  exercised  in  action.  How  do  you  hear  (the 
report)  ? — I  do  not  say,  that  your  child  is  dead — for  how 
could  you  bear  that  ? — but  that  your  oil  is  spilled,  your  wine 
drunk  up.  Do  you  act  in  such  a  way  that  one  standing  by 
you  while  you  are  making  a  great  noise,  may  say  this  only, 
"Philosopher,  yoii  say  something  different  in  the  school. 
Why  do  you  deceive  us  ?  Why,  when  you  are  only  a  worm, 
do  you  say  that  you  are  a  man  ?  I  should  like  to  be  present 
when  one  of  the  philosophers  is  with  a  woman,  that  I  might 
see  how  he  is  exerting  himself,  and  what  words  he  is  utter- 
ing, and  whether  he  remembers  his  title  of  philosopher,  and 
the  words  which  he  hears  or  says  or  reads." 

And  what  is  this  to  liberty?  Nothing  else  than  this, 
whether  you  who  are  rich  choose  or  not. — And  who  is  your 
evidence  for  this? — who  else  than  yourselves?  who  have  a 
powerful  master  (Cassar),  and  who  live  in  obedience  to  his 
nod  and  motion,  and  who  faint  if  he  only  looks  at  you  with  a 
scowling  countenance;  you  who  court  old  women^^  and  old 
men,  and  say,  "I  can  not  do  this :  it  is  not  in  my  power." 
Why  is  it  not  in  your  power?  Did  you  not  lately  contend 
with  me  and  say  that  you  are  free?  But  Aprulla''  has  hin- 
dered me  ?  Tell  the  truth  then,  slave,  and  do  not  run  away 
from  your  masters,  nor  deny,  nor  venture  to  produce  any  one 
to  assert  your  freedom  (  Kapntarriv  ) ,  when  you  have  so  many 
evidences  of  your  slavery.  And  indeed  when  a  man  is  com- 
pelled by  love  to  do  something  contrary  to  his  opinion  (judg- 
ment), and  at  the  same  time  sees  the  better,  but  has  not  the 
strength  to  follow  it,  one  might  consider  him  still  more 


3IO  EPICTETUS 

worthy  of  excuse  as  being  held  by  a  certain  violent  and  in  a 
manner  a  divine  power.^^  But  who  could  endure  you  who 
are  in  love  with  old  women  and  old  men,  and  wipe  the  old 
women's  noses,  and  wash  them  and  give  them  presents,  and 
also  wait  on  them  like  a  slave  when  they  are  sick,  and  at  the 
same  time  wish  them  dead,  and  question  the  physicians 
whether  they  are  sick  unto  death  ?  And  again,  when  in  order 
to  obtain  these  great  and  much-admired  magistracies  and 
honours,  you  kiss  the  hands  of  these  slaves  of  others,  and  so 
you  are  not  the  slave  even  of  free  men.  Then  you  walk  about 
before  me  in  stately  fashion  a  praetor  or  a  consul.  Do  I  not 
know  how  you  became  a  praetor,  by  what  means  you  got  your 
consulship,  who  gave  it  to  you?  I  would  not  even  choose  to 
live,  if  I  must  live  by  help  of  Felicion,^'^  and  endure  his  arro- 
gance and  servile  insolence :  for  I  know  what  a  slave  is,  who 
is  fortunate,  as  he  thinks,  and  puffed  up  by  pride. 

You  then,  a  man  may  say,  are  you  free?  I  wish,  by  the 
Gods,  and  pray  to  be  free ;  but  I  am  not  yet  able  to  face  my 
masters,  I  still  value  my  poor  body,  I  value  greatly  the  preser- 
vation of  it  entire,  though  I  do  not  possess  it  entire.^^  But  I 
can  point  out  to  you  a  free  man,  that  you  may  no  longer  seek 
an  example,  Diogenes  was  free.  How  was  he  free  ? — not  be- 
cause he  was  born  of  free  parents,  but  because  he  was  himself 
free,  because  he  had  cast  off  all  the  handles  of  slavery,  and  it 
was  not  possible  for  any  man  to  approach  him,  nor  had  any 
man  the  means  of  laying  hold  of  him  to  enslave  him.  He  had 
everything  easily  loosed,  everything  only  hanging  to  him. 
If  you  laid  hold  of  his  property,  he  would  have  rather  let  it 
go  and  be  yours,  than  he  would  have  followed  you  for  it:  if 
you  had  laid  hold  of  his  leg,  he  would  have  let  go  his  leg;  if 
of  all  his  body,  all  his  poor  body;  his  intimates,  friends, 
country,  just  the  same.  For  he  knew  from  whence  he  had 
them,  and  from  whom,  and  on  what  conditions.  His  true 
parents  indeed,  the  Gods,  and  his  real  country  he  would  never 
have  deserted,  nor  would  he  have  yielded  to  any  man  in  obe- 
dience to  them  and  to  their  orders,  nor  would  any  man  have 
died  for  his  country  more  readily.  For  he  was  not  used  to  in- 
quire when  he  should  be  considered  to  have  done  anything 
on  behalf  of  the  whole  of  things  (the  universe,  or  all  the 
world),  but  he  remembered  that  every  thing  which  is  done 


DISCOURSES  311 

comes  from  thence  and  is  done  on  behalf  of  that  country  and 
is  commanded  by  him  who  administers  it.  Therefore  see 
what  Diogenes  himself  says  and  writes : — "For  this  reason," 
he  says,  "Diogenes,  it  is  in  your  power  to  speak  both  with  the 
King  of  the  Persians  and  with  Archidamus  the  king  of  the 
Lacedaemonians,  as  you  please."  Was  it  because  he  was 
born  of  free  parents  ?  I  suppose  all  the  Athenians  and  all  the 
Lacedaemonians  because  they  were  born  of  slaves,  could  not 
talk  with  them  (these  kings)  as  they  wished,  but  feared  and 
paid  court  to  them.  Why  then  does  he  say  that  it  is  in  his 
power?  Because  I  do  not  consider  the  poor  body  to  be  my 
own,  because  I  want  nothing,  because  law^^  is  every  thing  to 
me,  and  nothing  else  is.  These  were  the  things  which  per- 
mitted him  to  be  free. 

And  that  you  may  not  think  that  I  show  you  the  example 
of  a  man  who  is  a  solitary  person,  who  has  neither  wife  nor 
children,  nor  country,  nor  friends,  nor  kinsmen,  by  whom  he 
could  be  bent  and  drawn  in  various  directions,  take  Socrates 
and  observe  that  he  had  a  wife  and  children,  but  he  did  not 
consider  them  as  his  own ;  that  he  had  a  country,  so  long  as  it 
was  fit  to  have  one,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  was  fit ;  friends 
and  kinsmen  also,  but  he  held  all  in  subjection  to  law  and  to 
the  obedience  due  to  it.  For  this  reason  he  was  the  first  to  go 
out  as  a  soldier,  when  it  was  necessary,  and  in  war  he  ex- 
posed himself  to  danger  most  unsparingly;^®  and  when  he 
was  sent  by  the  tyrants  to  seize  Leon,  he  did  not  even  deliber- 
ate about  the  matter,  because  he  thought  that  it  was  a  base 
action,  and  he  knew  that  he  must  die  (for  his  refusal) ,  if  it  so 
happened.^®  And  what  difference  did  that  make  to  him?  for 
he  intended  to  preserve  something  else,  not  his  poor  flesh, 
but  his  fidelity,  his  honourable  character.  These  are  things 
which  could  not  be  assailed  nor  brought  into  subjection.  Then 
when  he  was  obliged  to  speak  in  defence  of  his  life,  did  he 
behave  like  a  man  who  had  children,  who  had  a  wife  ?  No,  but 
he  behaved  like  a  man  who  has  neither.  And  what  did  he  do 
when  he  was  (ordered)  to  drink  the  poison,*^  and  when  he 
had  the  power  of  escaping  from  prison,  and  when  Crito  said 
to  him,  Escape  for  the  sake  of  your  children,  what  did  Socra- 
tes say?*^  did  he  consider  the  power  of  escape  as  an  unex- 
pected gain  ?  By  no  means :  he  considered  what  was  fit  and 


3 1 2  EPICTETUS 

proper ;  but  the  rest  he  did  not  even  look  at  or  take  into  the 
reckoning.  For  he  did  not  choose,  he  said,  to  save  his  poor 
body,  but  to  save  that  which  is  increased  and  saved  by  doing 
what  is  just,  and  is  impaired  and  destroyed  by  doing  what 
is  unjust.  Socrates  will  not  save  his  life  by  a  base  act ;  he  who 
would  not  put  the  Athenians  to  the  vote  when  they  clam- 
oured that  he  should  do  so,^^  he  who  refused  to  obey  the  ty- 
rants, he  who  discoursed  in  such  a  manner  about  virtue  and 
right  behaviour.  It  is  not  possible  to  save  such  a  man's  life 
by  base  acts,  but  he  is  saved  by  dying,  not  by  running  away. 
For  the  good  actor  also  preserves  his  character  by  stopping 
when  he  ought  to  stop,  better  than  when  he  goes  on  acting  be- 
yond the  proper  time.  What  then  shall  the  children  of  Soc- 
rates do?  "If,"  said  Socrates,  "I  had  gone  ofif  to  Thessaly, 
would  you  have  taken  care  of  them;  and  if  I  depart  to  the 
world  below,  will  there  be  no  man  to  take  care  of  them?"  See 
how  he  gives  to  death  a  gentle  name  and  mocks  it.  But  if  you 
and  I  had  been  in  his  place,  we  should  have  immediately  an- 
swered as  philosophers  that  those  who  act  unjustly  must  be 
repaid  in  the  same  way,  and  we  should  have  added,  "I  shall 
be  useful  to  many,  if  my  life  is  saved,  and  if  I  die,  I  shall  be 
useful  to  no  man."  For,  if  it  had  been  necessary,  we  should 
have  made  our  escape  by  slipping  through  a  small  hole.  And 
how  in  that  case  should  we  have  been  useful  to  any  man  ?  for 
where  would  they  have  been  then  staying  ?^^  or  if  we  were 
useful  to  men  while  we  were  alive,  should  we  not  have  been 
much  more  useful  to  them  by  dying  when  we  ought  to  die, 
and  as  we  ought?  And  now  Socrates  being  dead,  no  less 
useful  to  men,  and  even  more  useful,  is  the  remembrance  of 
that  which  he  did  or  said  when  he  was  alive.^'* 

Think  of  these  things,  these  opinions,  these  words :  look  to 
these  examples,  if  you  would  be  free,  if  you  desire  the  thing 
according  to  its  worth.  And  what  is  the  wonder  if  you  buy 
so  great  a  thing  at  the  price  of  things  so  many  and  so  great? 
For  the  sake  of  this  which  is  called  liberty,  some  hang  them- 
selves, others  throw  themselves  down  precipices,  and  some- 
times even  whole  cities  have  perished :  and  will  you  not  for 
the  sake  of  the  true  and  unassailable  and  secure  liberty  give 
back  to  God  when  he  demands  them  the  things  which  he  has 
given  ?  Will  you  not,  as  Plato  says,  study  not  to  die  only,  but 


DISCOURSES  313 

also  to  endure  torture,  and  exile,  and  scourging  and  in  a  word 
to  give  up  all  which  is  not  your  own  ?  If  you  will  not,  you  will 
be  a  slave  among  slaves,  even  if  you  be  ten  thousand  times  a 
consul ;  and  if  you  make  your  way  up  to  the  Palace  (Caesar's 
residence),  you  will  no  less  be  a  slave;  and  you  will  feel,  that 
perhaps  philosophers  utter  words  which  are  contrary  to  com- 
mon opinion  (paradoxes),  as  Cleanthes  also  said,  but  not 
words  contrary  to  reason.  For  you  will  know  by  experience 
that  the  words  are  true,  and  that  there  is  no  profit  from  the 
things  which  are  valued  and  eagerly  sought  to  those  who 
have  obtained  them ;  and  to  those  who  have  not  yet  obtained 
them  there  is  an  imagination  ((pavTadia) ,  that  when  these 
things  are  come,  all  that  is  good  will  come  with  them ;  then, 
when  they  are  come,  the  feverish  feeling  is  the  same,  the 
tossing  to  and  fro  is  the  same,  the  satiety,  the  desire  of  things 
which  are  not  present ;  for  freedom  is  acquired  not  by  the  full 
possession  of  the  things  which  are  desired,  but  by  removing 
the  desire.  And  that  you  may  know  that  this  is  true,  as  you 
have  laboured  for  those  things,  so  transfer  your  labour  to 
these;  be  vigilant  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring  an  opinion 
which  will  make  you  free ;  pay  court  to  a  philosopher  instead 
of  to  a  rich  old  man :  be  seen  about  a  philosopher's  doors : 
you  will  not  disgrace  yourself  by  being  seen ;  you  will  not  go 
away  empty  nor  without  profit,  if  you  go  to  the  philosopher 
as  you  ought,  and  if  not  (if  you  do  not  succeed),  try  at  least : 
the  trial  (attempt)  is  not  disgraceful. 

NOTES 

^  Cicero,  Paradox,  v.  "Quid  enim  libertas  ?  Potestas  vivendi  ut  velis. 
Quis  igitur  vivit  ut  vult,  nisi  qui  recta  sequitur,"  etc 

'  "Whoever  committeth  sin,  is  the  servant  of  sin,"  John  viii.  34.  Mrs. 
Carter. 

'A  usual  form  of  oath.  See  ii.  20,  29.  Upton  compares  the  Roman  ex- 
pression "Per  Genium,"  as  in  Horace,  Epp.  i.  7,  94 — 

"Quod  te  per  Genium,  dextramque,  Deosque  Penates 
Obsecro  et  obtestor." 

•  A  lover's  exclusion  by  his  mistress  was  a  common  topic,  and  a  serious 
cause  of  complaint  (Lucretius,  iv.  1172)  : 

"At  lacrimans  exclusus  amator  limina  saepe 
Floribus  et  sertis  operit." 

See  also  Horace,  Odes,  i.  25. 


314 


EPICTETUS 


•  Thrasonides  was  a  character  in  one  of  Menander's  plays,  entitled 
Mtaov/ievos  or  the  Hated. 

•  It  must  have  been  rather  difficult  to  manage  a  tame  lion ;  but  we  read 
of  such  things  among  the  Romans.  Seneca,  Epp.  41. 

'  The  keeping  of  birds  in  cages,  parrots  and  others,  was  also  common 
among  the  Romans.  Ovid  (Amor.  ii.  6)  has  written  a  beautiful  elegy  on 
the  death  of  a  favourite  parrot. 

"See  ii.  i,  26.  The  eiKo6T(bvat^Nere  the  Publicani,  men  who  farmed 
this  and  other  taxes.  A  tax  of  a  twentieth  of  the  value  of  a  slave  when 
manumitted  was  established  at  an  early  time  (Livy  vii.  16).  It  appears 
from  this  passage  that  the  manumitted  slave  paid  the  tax  out  of  his  sav- 
ings (peculium).     See  ii.  i,  note  7. 

'  The  reader  may  guess  the  meaning. 

'"  A  gold  ring  was  worn  by  the  Equites ;  and  accordingly  to  desire  the 
gold  ring  is  the  same  as  to  desire  to  be  raised  to  the  Equestrian  class. 

"  The  colophon.  See  ii.  14,  note  5.  After  the  words  "most  splendid 
slavery"  it  is  probable  that  some  words  have  accidentally  been  omitted  in 
the  manuscript 

"  Saturnalia.  See  i.  25,  note  3. 

At  this  season  the  slaves  had  liberty  to  enjoy  themselves  and  to  talk 
freely  with  their  masters.  Hence  Horace  says  Sat.  ii.  74 — 

"Age,  libertate  Decembri, 
Quando  ita  majores  voluerunt  utere." 

"  Schweighauser  observes  that  death  is  in  our  power,  as  the  Stoics 
taught ;  and  Epictetus  often  tells  us  ,that  the  door  is  open.  He  suggests 
that  the  true  reading  may  be  icai  ovk  ditoQaveiv.  I  think  that  the  text 
is  right.  Epictetus  asks  is  "Life  or  Death"  in  our  power.  He  means  no 
more  than  if  he  had  said  Life  only. 

"  He  means  that  which  seems  to  you  to  be  false.     See  iii.  22,  42. 

"In  the  matter  of  assent  then" :  this  is  the  third  roiroi  or  "locus"  or 
division  in  philosophy  (iii.  2,  1-5).  As  to  the  will,  compare  i.  17,  note 
10.  Epictetus  affirms  that  a  man  can  not  be  compelled  to  assent,  that  is 
to  admit,  to  allow,  or,  to  use  another  word,  to  believe  in  that  which 
seems  to  him  to  be  false,  or,  to  use  the  same  word  again,  to  believe  in 
that  in  which  he  does  not  believe.  When  the  Christian  uses  the  two 
creeds,  which  begin  with  the  words,  "I  believe,  etc.,"  he  knows  or  he 
ought  to  know,  that  he  can  not  compel  an  unbeliever  to  accept  the  same 
belief.  He  may  by  pains  and  penalties  of  various  kinds  compel  some 
persons  to  profess  or  to  express  the  same  belief;  but  as  no  pains  or 
penalties  could  compel  some  Christians  to  deny  their  belief,  so  I  suppose 
that  perhaps  there  are  men  who  could  not  be  compelled  to  express  this 
belief  when  they  have  it  not.  The  case  of  the  believer  and  the  unbeliever 
however  are  not  the  same.  The  believer  may  be  strengthened  in  his 
belief  by  the  belief  that  he  will  in  some  way  be  punished  by  God,  if  he 
denies  that  which  he  believes.  The  unbeliever  will  not  have  the  same 
motive  or  reason  for  not  expressing  his  assent  to  that  which  he  does 
not  believe.  He  believes  that  it  is  and  will  be  all  the  same  to  him  with 
respect  to  God,  whether  he  gives  his  assent  to  that  which  he  does  not 
believe  or  refuses  his  assent.  There  remains  nothing  then  to  trouble 
him  if  he  expresses  his  assent  to  that  which  he  does  not  believe,  except 
the  opinion  of  those  who  know  that  he  does  not  believe,  or  his  own  re- 
flections on  expressing  his  assent  to  that  which  he  does  not  believe ;  or 
in  other  words  his  publication  of  a  lie,  which  may  probably  do  no  harm 
to  any  man  or  in  any  way.     I  believe  that  some  men  are  strong  enough, 


DISCOURSES  3 1 5 

under  some  circumstances  at  least,  to  refuse  their  assent  to  any  thing 
which  they  do  not  believe;  but  I  do  not  affirm  that  they  would  do  this 
under  all  circumstances. 

To  return  to  the  matter  under  consideration,  a  man  can  not  be  com- 
pelled by  any  power  to  accept  voluntarily  a  thing  as  true,  when  he 
believes  that  it  is  not  true ;  and  this  act  of  his  is  quite  independent  of  the 
matter  whether  his  unbelief  is  well  founded  or  not.  He  does  not  believe 
because  he  can  not  believe.  Yet  it  is  said  ( Mark  xvi.  i6)  in  the  received 
text,  as  it  now  stands,  "He  that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved ; 
but  he  that  believeth  not,  shall  be  damned"  (condemned).  The  cause,  as 
it  is  called,  of  this  unbelief  is  explained  by  some  theologians ;  but  all  men 
do  not  admit  the  explanation  to  be  sufficient ;  and  it  does  not  concern  the 
present  subject. 

"  The  word  "admire"  is  6av/idd^?  in  the  original.  The  word  is  often 
used  by  Epictetus,  and  Horace  uses  "admirari"  in  this  Stoical  sense.  See 
i.  29.  2,  note. 

"The  word  hayyapEta,a  word  of  Persian  origin  (Herodotus,  viii. 
p8).  It  means  here  the  seizure  of  animals  for  military  purposes  when  it 
IS  necessary.  Upton  refers  to  Matthew  5,  v.  41,  Mark  15,  c.  21  for  similar 
uses  of  the  verb  dyyaftevoo. 

"  Here  he  speaks  of  asses  being  shod.  The  Latin  translation  of  the 
word  (  vitc^Tf/idria  )  in  Epictetus  is  "ferreae  calces."  I  suppose  they 
could  use  nothing  but  iron. 

"  The  word  is  aTeoretxiXoo,  which  means  what  I  have  translated.  The 
purpose  of  circumvallation  was  to  take  and  sometimes  also  to  destroy  a 
fortress.  Schweig.  translates  the  word  by  "destruam,"  and  that  is  per- 
haps not  contrary  to  the  meaning  of  the  text;  but  it  is  not  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  word. 

"  In  this  passage  and  in  what  follows  we  find  the  emphatic  affirmation 
of  the  duty  of  conformity  and  of  the  subjection  of  man's  will  to  the  will 
of  God.  The  words  are  conclusive  evidence  of  the  doctrine  of  Epictetus 
that  a  man  ought  to  subject  himself  in  all  things  to  the  will  of  God  or 
to  that  which  he  believes  to  be  the  will  of  God.  No  Christian  martyr  ever 
proclaimed  a  more  solemn  obedience  to  God's  will.  The  Christian  martyr 
indeed  has  given  perfect  proof  of  his  sincerity  by  enduring  torments  and 
death :  the  heathen  philosopher  was  not  put  to  the  same  test,  and  we  can 
not  therefore  say  that  he  would  have  been  able  to  bear  it. 

"In  this  passage  the  distinction  must  be  observed  between  BeXao  and 
BovXofiai  which  the  Latin  translators  have  not  observed,  nor  Mrs.  Car- 
ter.    See  Schweig.' s  note  on  s.  90. 

**^v  T(S  K66fxop  .'he  means  "on  earth." 

^**  Schweig.  expresses  his  surprise  that  Epictetus  has  applied  this  word 
{opjudi)  to  God.  He  says  that  Wolf  has  translated  it  "Dei  appetitio- 
nem,"  and  Upton  "impetum."  He  says  that  he  has  translated  it  "con- 
silium." 

It  is  not  unusual  for  men  to  speak  of  God  in  the  same  words  In  which 
they  speak  of  man. 

"  See  ii.  i,  18.  Schweig.  expected  that  Epictetus  would  have  said 
"body  and  possessions,  etc."  I  assume  that  Epictetus  did  say  "body  and 
possessions,  etc.,"  and  that  his  pupil  or  some  copyist  of  manuscripts  has 
omitted  the  word  "body." 

**  "The  Lord  gave  and  the  Lord  hath  taken  away.  Job  i.  21."  Mrs. 
Carter. 

"The  initiated  (  jitij6rca)  are  those  who  were  introduced  with  solemn 
ceremonies  into  some  great  religious  body.  These  ceremonies  are  de- 
scribed by  Dion  Prus.  Orat.  xii.,  quoted  by  Upton. 


3i6 


EPICTETUS 


"  "And  this  is  all  the  comfort,  every  serious  reader  will  be  apt  to  say, 
which  one  of  the  best  philosophers,  in  one  of  his  noblest  discourses,  can 
give  to  the  good  man  under  severe  distress?  'Either  tell  yourself  that 
present  suffering  void  of  future  hope,  is  no  evil,  or  give  up  your  exist- 
ence and  mingle  with  the  elements  of  the  Universe' !  Unspeakably  more 
rational  and  more  worthy  of  infinite  goodness  is  our  blessed  Master's  ex- 
hortation to  the  persecuted  Christian:  'Rejoice  and  be  exceedingl>  glad, 
for  great  is  your  reward  in  heaven.'  "     Mrs.  Carter. 

I  do  not  think  that  Mrs.  Carter  has  represented  correctly  the  teaching 
of  Epictetus.  He  is  addressing  men  who  were  not  Christians,  but  were, 
as  he  assumes,  believers  in  God  or  in  the  gods,  and  his  argument  is  that 
a  man  ought  to  be  contented  with  things  as  they  are,  because  they  are 
from  God.  If  he  can  not  be  contented  with  things  as  they  are,  and  make 
the  best  of  them,  the  philosopher  can  say  no  more  to  the  man.  He  tells 
him  to  depart.  What  else  could  he  say  to  a  grumbler,  who  is  also  a  be- 
liever in  God?  If  he  is  not  a  believer,  Epictetus  might  say  the  same  to 
him  also.   The  case  is  past  help  or  advice. 

The  Christian  doctrine,  of  which  probably  Epictetus  knew  nothing,  is 
very  different.  It  promises  future  happiness  on  certain  conditions  to 
Christians,  but  to  Christians  only,  if  I  understand  it  right. 

"  See  the  same  story  in  Aulus  Gellius  (ii.  c.  l8),  who  says  that  Xeni- 
ades,  a  Corinthian,  bought  Diogenes,  manumitted  him  and  made  him  the 
master  of  his  children. 

**  I  do  not  know  if  dogs  sweat :  at  least  in  a  state  of  health  I  have 
never  seen  it.   But  this  is  a  question  for  the  learned  in  dog  science. 

"*  As  Upton  remarks,  Epictetus  is  referring  to  the  four  categories  of 
the  Stoics. 

*"  "Stoicus  occidit  Baream,  delator  amicura, 
Discipulumque  senex." 

Juvenal,  iii.  ii6. 

Epictetus  is  supposed  to  allude  to  the  crime  of  Egnatius  Celer  who  ac- 
cused Barea  Soranus  at  Rome  in  the  reign  of  Nero  (Tacit.  Ann.  xvi. 
32). 

"  Mrs.  Carter  says  that  "there  is  much  obscurity  and  some  variety  of 
reading  in  the  lines  of  the  original."  But  see  Schweig.'s  notes.  Epic- 
tetus is  showing  that  talk  about  philosophy  is  useless :  philosophy  should 
be  practical. 

*■  Horace  Sat.  ii.  5. 

"Aprulla  is  a  Roman  woman's  name.  It  means  some  old  woman  who 
is  courted  for  her  money. 

**  Compare  Plato  ( Ssmiposium,  p.  206)  :  "  All  men  conceive  both  as  to 
the  body  and  as  to  the  soul,  and  when  they  have  arrived  at  a  certain  age, 
our  nature  desires  to  procreate.  But  it  can  not  procreate  in  that  which  is 
ugly,  but  in  that  which  is  beautiful.  For  the  conjunction  of  man  and 
woman  is  generation ;  but  this  act  is  divine,  and  this  in  the  animal  which 
is  mortal  is  divine,  conceiving  and  begetting."  See  what  is  said  in  ii.  23, 
note  5  on  marrying.  In  a  certain  sense  the  procreation  of  children  is  a 
duty,  and  consequently  the  providing  for  them  is  also  a  duty.  It  is  the 
fulfilling  of  the  will  and  purpose  of  the  Deity  to  people  the  earth ;  and 
therefore  the  act  of  procreation  is  divine.  So  a  man's  duty  is  to  labour  in 
some  way,  and  if  necessary,  to  earn  his  living  and  sustain  the  life  which 
he  has  received;  and  this  is  also  a  divine  act.  Paul's  opinion  of  marriage 
is  contained  in  Cor.  i.  7.  Some  of  his  teaching  on  this  matter  has  been 
justly  condemned.   He  has  no  conception  of  the  true  nature  of  marriage; 


DISCOURSES  317 

at  least  he  does  not  show  that  he  has  in  this  chapter.  His  teaching  is  im- 
practicable, contrary  to  that  of  Epictetus,  and  to  the  nature  and  consti- 
tution of  man;  and  it  is  rejected  by  the  good  sense  of  Christians  who 
affect  to  receive  his  teaching;  except,  I  suppose,  by  the  superstitious  body 
of  Christians,  who  recommend  and  commend  the  so-called  religious,  and 
unmarried  life. 

"  Felicion.     See  i.  19. 

*•  Epictetus  alludes  to  his  lameness :  compare  i.  8.  14,  i.  16.  20,  and  other 
passages.  Upton. 

"  The  sense  of  "law"  (  ovofio^  ),  can  be  collected  from  what  follows. 
Compare  the  discourse  of  Socrates  on  obedience  to  the  law.  (Criton,  c. 
II,  etc.) 

"  Socrates  fought  at  Potidaea,  Amphipolis  and  Delium.  He  is  said  to 
have  gained  the  prize  for  courage  at  Delium.  He  was  a  brave  soldier  as 
well  as  a  philosopher,  a  union  of  qualities  not  common.  (Plato's  Apol- 
ogy.) 

"  Socrates  with  others  was  ordered  by  the  Thirty  tyrants,  who  at  that 
time  governed  Athens,  to  arrest  Leon  in  the  island  of  Salamis  and  to 
bring  him  to  be  put  to  death.  But  Socrates  refused  to  obey  the  order.  Few 
men  would  have  done  what  he  did  under  the  circumstances.  (Plato's 
Apology;  M.  Antoninus,  vii.  66.) 

**  Cicero,  Tuscul.  Disp.  i.  29. 

"  The  Dialogue  of  Plato,  named  Criton,  contains  the  arguments  which 
were  used  by  his  friends  to  persuade  Socrates  to  escape  from  prison,  and 
the  reply  of  Socrates. 

"  This  alludes  to  the  behaviour  of  Socrates  when  he  refused  to  put  to 
the  vote  the  matter  of  the  Athenian  generals  and  their  behaviour  after 
the  naval  battle  of  Arginusae.  The  violence  of  the  weather  prevented  the 
commanders  from  collecting  and  honourably  burying  those  who  fell  in 
the  battle;  and  the  Athenians  after  their  hasty  fashjon,  wished  all  the 
commanders  to  be  put  to  death.  But  Socrates,  who  was  in  office  at  this 
time  resisted  the  unjust  clamour  of  the  people.  Xenophon  Hellenica, 
i.  c.  7,  IS ;    Plato,  Apologia ;    Xenophon,  Memorab.  i.  i,  18. 

**The  original  isitov  yap  av  ertejueroy  itceivot;  this  seems  to  mean, 
if  we  had  escaped  and  left  the  country,  where  would  those  have  been  to 
whom  we  might  have  been  useful?  They  would  have  been  left  behind, 
and  we  could  have  done  nothing  for  them. 

**  This  is  the  conclusion  about  Socrates,  whom  Epictetus  highly  valued : 
the  remembrance  of  what  Socrates  did  and  said  is  even  more  useful  than 
his  life.  "The  life  of  the  dead,"  says  Cicero  of  Servius  Sulpicius,  the 
great  Roman  jurist  and  Cicero's  friend,  "rests  in  the  remembrance  of  the 
living."  Epictetus  has  told  us  of  some  of  the  acts  of  Socrates,  which 
prove  him  to  have  been  a  brave  and  honest  man.  He  does  not  tell  us  here 
what  Socrates  said,  which  means  what  he  taught;  but  he  knew  what  it 
was.  Modem  writers  have  expounded  the  matter  at  length,  and  in  a  form 
which  Epictetus  would  not  or  could  not  have  used. — Socrates  left  to  oth- 
ers the  questions  which  relate  to  the  material  world,  and  he  first  taught, 
as  we  are  told,  the  things  which  concern  man's  daily  life  and  his  inter- 
course with  other  men :  in  other  words  he  taught  Ethic  (the  principles  of 
morality).  Fields  and  trees,  he  said,  will  teach  me  nothing,  but  man  in 
his  social  state  will :  and  man  then  is  the  proper  subject  of  the  philosophy 
of  Socrates.  The  beginning  of  this  knowledge  was,  as  he  said,  to  know 
himself  according  to  the  precept  of  the  Delphic  oracle  "Know  thy^^elf ' 
(yvobQt  deavTov):  and  the  object  of  his  philosophy  was  to  comprehend 
the  nature  of  man  as  a  moral  being  in  all  relations ;  and  among  these  the 


3i8 


EPICTETUS 


relation  of  man  to  God  as  the  father  of  all,  creator  and  ruler  of  all,  as 
Plato  expresses  it.  Socrates  taught  that  what  we  call  death  is  not  the 
end  of  man;  death  is  only  the  road  to  another  life.  "The  death  of  Soc- 
rates was  conformable  to  his  life  and  teaching.  Socrates  died  not 
only  with  the  noblest  courage  and  tranquillity,  but  he  also  refused,  as  we 
are  told,  to  escape  from  death,  which  the  laws  of  the  state  permitted,  by 
going  into  exile  or  paying  a  fine,  because  as  he  said,  if  he  had  himself 
consented  to  a  fine  or  allowed  others  to  propose  it,  (Xenophon,  Apol. 
2  22),  such  an  act  would  have  been  an  admission  of  his  guilt.  Both 
(Socrates  and  Jesus)  offered  themselves  with  the  firmest  resolution 
for  a  holy  cause,  which  was  so  far  from  being  lost  through  their  death 
that  it  only  served  rather  to  make  it  the  general  cause  of  mankind." 
(Das  Christliche  des  Platonismus  oder  Socrates  and  Christus,  by  F.  C. 
Baur.) 

This  essay  by  Baur  is  very  ingenious.  Perhaps  there  are  some  readers 
who  will  disagree  with  him  on  many  points  in  the  comparison  of 
Socrates  and  Christ.  However  the  essay  is  well  worth  the  trouble  of 
reading. 

The  opinion  of  Rousseau  in  his  comparison  of  Jesus  and  Socrates  is 
in  some  respects  more  just  than  that  of  Baur,  though  the  learning  of  the 
Frenchman  is  very  small  when  compared  with  that  of  the  German. 
"What  prejudices,  what  blindness  must  a  man  have,"  says  Rousseau, 
"when  he  dares  to  compare  the  son  of  Sophronicus  with  the  son  of 
Mary ! — the  death  of  Socrates  philosophising  tranquil  with  his  friends  is 
the  most  gentle  that  a  man  could  desire :  that  of  Jesus  expiring  in  tor- 
ments, insulted,  jeered,  cursed  by  a  whole  people,  is  the  most  horrible 
that  a  man  could  dread.  Socrates  taking  the  poisoned  cup  blesses  him 
who  presents  it  and  weeps ;  Jesus  in  his  horrible  punishment  prays  for 
his  savage  executioners.  Yes,  if  the  life  and  the  death  of  Socrates  are 
those  of  a  sage,  the  life  and  the  death  of  Jesus  are  those  of  a  God." 
(Rousseau,  Emile,  vol.  iii.  p.  166.    Amsterdam,  1765.) 


CHAPTER  II 

ON  FAMILIAR  INTIMACY 

TO  this  matter  before  all  you  must  attend,  that  you  be 
never  so  closely  connected  with  any  of  your  former 
intimates  or  friends  as  to  come  down  to  the  same 
acts  as  he  does.^  If  you  do  not  observe  this 
rule,  you  will  ruin  yourself.  But  if  the  thought  arises 
in  your  mind,  "I  shall  seem  disobliging  to  him  and  he 
will  not  have  the  same  feeling  towards  me,"  remem- 
ber that  nothing  is  done  without  cost,  nor  is  it  possi- 
ble for  a  man  if  he  does  not  do  the  same  things  to  be 
the  same  man  that  he  was.  Choose  then  which  of  the 
two  you  will  have,  to  be  equally  loved  by  those  by 
whom  you  were  formerly  loved,  being  the  same  with  your 
former  self;  or,  being  superior,  not  to  obtain  from  your 
friends  the  same  that  you  did  before.  For  if  this  is  better,  im- 
mediately turn  away  to  it,  and  let  no  other  considerations 
draw  you  in  a  different  direction.  For  no  man  is  able  to  make 
progress  (improvement),  when  he  is  wavering  between  op- 
posite things;  but  if  you  have  preferred  this  (one  thing)  to 
all  things,  if  you  choose  to  attend  to  this  only,  to  work  out 
this  only,  give  up  every  thing  else.  But  if  you  will  not  do 
this,  your  wavering  will  produce  both  these  results :  you  will 
neither  improve  as  you  ought,  nor  will  you  obtain  what  you 
formerly  obtained.  For  before  by  plainly  desiring  the  things 
which  were  worth  nothing,  you  pleased  your  associates.  But 
you  can  not  excel  in  both  kinds,  and  it  is  necessary  that  so  far 
as  you  share  in  the  one,  you  must  fall  short  in  the  other.  You 
can  not,  when  you  do  not  drink  with  those  with  whom  you 
used  to  drink,  be  agreeable  to  them  as  you  were  before. 
Choose  then  whether  you  will  be  a  hard  drinker  and  pleasant 
to  your  former  associates  or  a  sober  man  and  disagreeable  to 
them.  You  can  Yiot,  when  you  do  not  sing  with  those  with 
whom  you  used  to  sing,  be  equally  loved  by  them.  Choose 
then  in  this  matter  also  which  of  the  two  you  will  have.  For 
if  it  is  better  to  be  modest  and  orderly  than  for  a  man  to  say 

319 


320 


EPICTETUS 


he  is  a  jolly  fellow,  give  up  the  rest,  renounce  it,  turn  away 
from  it,  have  nothing  to  do  with  such  men.  But  if  this  be- 
haviour shall  not  please  you,  turn  altogether  to  the  opposite : 
become  a  catamite,  an  adulterer,  and  act  accordingly,  and  you 
will  get  what  you  wish.  And  jump  up  in  the  theatre  and  bawl 
out  in  praise  of  the  dancer.  But  characters  so  different  can 
not  be  mingled:  you  can  not  act  both  Thersites  and  Aga- 
memnon. If  you  intend  to  be  Thersites,^  you  must  be 
hump-backed  and  bald :  if  Agamemnon,  you  must  be  tall  and 
handsome,  and  love  those  who  are  placed  in  obedience  to  you. 


NOTES 


*  He  means  that  you  must  not  do  as  he  does,  because  he  does  this  or 
that  act.  The  advice  is  in  substance,  Do  not  do  as  your  friend  does 
simply  because  he  is  your  friend. 

'  See  Iliad,  ii.  216;  and  for  the  description  of  Agamemnon,  Iliad,  iii. 
167. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHAT  THINGS  WE  SHOULD  EXCHANGE  FOR  OTHER  THINGS 

KEEP  this  thought  in  readiness,  when  you  lose  any 
thing  external,  what  you  acquire  in  place  of  it ;  and 
if  it  be  worth  more,  never  say,  I  have  had  a  loss; 
neither  if  you  have  got  a  horse  in  place  of  an  ass,  or 
an  ox  in  place  of  a  sheep,  nor  a  good  action  in  place  of  a  bit 
of  money,  nor  in  place  of  idle  talk  such  tranquillity  as  befits 
a  man,  nor  in  place  of  lewd  talk  if  you  have  acquired  mod- 
esty. If  you  remember  this,  you  will  always  maintain  your 
character  such  as  it  ought  to  be.  But  if  you  do  not,  consider 
that  the  times  of  opportunity  are  perishing,  and  that  what- 
ever pains  you  take  about  yourself,  you  are  going  to  waste 
them  all  and  overturn  them.  And  it  needs  only  a  few  things 
for  the  loss  and  overturning  of  all,  namely  a  small  deviation 
from  reason.  For  the  steerer  of  a  ship  to  upset  it,  he  has  no 
need  of  the  same  means  as  he  has  need  of  for  saving  it :  but 
if  he  turns  it  a  little  to  the  wind,  it  is  lost ;  and  if  he  does  not 
do  this  purposely,  but  has  been  neglecting  his  duty  a  little, 
the  ship  is  lost.  Something  of  the  kind  happens  in  this  case 
also :  if  you  only  fall  a  nodding  a  little,  all  that  you  have  up 
to  this  time  collected  is  gone.  Attend  therefore  to  the  ap- 
pearances of  things,  and  watch  over  them;  for  that  which 
you  have  to  preserve  is  no  small  matter,  but  it  is  modesty  and 
fidelity  and  constancy,  freedom  from  the  affects,  a  state  of 
mind  undisturbed,  freedom  from  fear,  tranquillity,  in  a 
word  liberty.  For  what  will  you  sell  these  things  ?  See  what 
is  the  value  of  the  things  which  you  will  obtain  in  exchange 
for  these. — But  shall  I  not  obtain  any  such  thing  for  it? — 
See,  and  if  you  do  in  return  get  that,  see  what  you  receive  in 
place  of  it.  I  possess  decency,  he  possesses  a  tribuneship :  he 
possesses  a  prsetorship,  I  possess  modesty.  But  I  do  not 
make  acclamations  where  it  is  not  becoming :  I  will  not  stand 
up  where  I  ought  not  ;^  for  I  am  free,  and  a  friend  of  God, 
and  so  I  obey  him  willingly.  But  I  must  not  claim  (seek)  any 
thing  else,  neither  body  nor  possession,  nor  magistracy,  nor 

at  321 


322  EPICTETUS 

good  report,  nor  in  fact  any  thing.  For  he  (God)  does  not  al- 
low me  to  claim  (seek)  them :  for  if  he  had  chosen,  he  would 
have  made  them  good  for  me;  but  he  has  not  done  so,  and 
for  this  reason  I  can  not  transgress  his  commands.  Preserve 
that  which  is  your  own  good  in  every  thing ;  and  as  to  every 
other  thing,  as  it  is  permitted,  and  so  far  as  to  behave  con- 
sistently with  reason  in  respect  to  them,  content  with  this 
only.  If  you  do  not,  you  will  be  unfortunate,  you  will  fail  in 
all  things,  you  will  be  hindered,  you  will  be  impeded.  These 
are  the  laws  which  have  been  sent  from  thence  (from  God)  ; 
these  are  the  orders.  Of  these  laws  a  man  ought  to  be  an  ex- 
positor, to  these  he  ought  to  submit,  not  to  those  of  Masurius 
and  Cassius.^ 


'  He  alludes  to  the  factions  in  the  theatres,  iii.  4,  4 ;  iv.  2-9.  Upton. 

'  Masurius  Sabinus  was  a  great  Roman  jurisconsult  in  the  times  of 
Augustus  and  Tiberius.  He  is  sometimes  named  Masurius  only  (Per- 
sius,  V.  90).  C.  Cassius  Longinus  was  also  a  jurist,  and,  it  is  said,  a  de- 
scendant of  the  Cassius,  who  was  one  of  the  murderers  of  the  dictator 
Caius  Caesar.    He  lived  from  the  time  of  Tiberius  to  that  of  Vespasian. 


CHAPTER  IV 

TO  THOSE  WHO  ARE  DESIROUS  OF  PASSING  LIFE  IN 
TRANQUILLITY 

REMEMBER  that  not  only  the  desire  of  power  and 
of  riches  makes  us  mean  and  subject  to  others, 
but  even  the  desire  of  tranquillity,  and  of  leisure, 
and  of  travelling  abroad,  and  of  learning.  For 
to  speak  plainly,  whatever  the  external  thing  may  be,  the 
value  which  we  set  upon  it  places  us  in  subjection  to  others. 
What  then  is  the  difference  between  desiring  to  be  a  senator 
or  not  desiring  to  be  one ;  what  is  the  difference  between  de- 
siring power  or  being  content  with  a  private  station ;  what  is 
the  difference  between  saying,  I  am  unhappy,  I  have  nothing 
to  do,  but  I  am  bound  to  my  books  as  a  corpse ;  or  saying,  I 
am  unhappy,  I  have  no  leisure  for  reading?  For  as  saluta- 
tions and  power  are  things  external  and  independent  of  the 
will,  so  is  a  book.  For  what  purpose  do  you  choose  to  read  ? 
Tell  me.  For  if  you  only  direct  your  purpose  to  being  amused 
or  learning  something,  you  are  a  silly  fellow  and  incapable  of 
enduring  labour.*  But  if  you  refer  reading  to  the  proper  end, 
what  else  is  this  than  a  tranquil  and  happy  life  {evdoia)? 
But  if  reading  does  not  secure  for  you  a  happy  and  tranquil 
life,  what  is  the  use  of  it  ?  But  it  does  secure  this,  the  man  re- 
plies, and  for  this  reason  I  am  vexed  that  I  am  deprived  of  it. 
— And  what  is  this  tranquil  and  happy  life,  which  any  man 
can  impede,  I  do  not  say  Csesar  or  Caesar's  friend,  but  a 
crow,  a  piper,  a  fever,  and  thirty  thousand  other  things  ?  But 
a  tranquil  and  happy  life  contains  nothing  so  sure  as  conti- 
nuity and  freedom  from  obstacle.  Now  I  am  called  to  do 
something :  I  will  go  then  with  the  purpose  of  observing  the 
measures  (rules)  which  I  must  keep,^  of  acting  with  mod- 
esty, steadiness,  without  desire  and  aversion  to  things  ex- 
ternal,^ and  then  that  I  may  attend  to  men,  what  they  say, 
how  they  are  moved  ;*  and  this  not  with  any  bad  disposition, 
or  that  I  may  have  something  to  blame  or  to  ridicule ;  but  I 
turn  to  myself,  and  ask  if  I  also  commit  the  same  faults. 

323 


324  EPICTETUS 

How  then  shall  I  cease  to  commit  them?  Formerly  I  also 
acted  wrong,  but  now  I  do  not ;  thanks  to  God. 

Come,  when  you  have  done  these  things  and  have  attended 
to  them,  have  you  done  a  worse  act  than  when  you  have  read 
a  thousand  verses  or  written  as  many?  For  when  you  eat, 
are  you  grieved  because  you  are  not  reading?  are  you  not 
satisfied  with  eating  according  to  what  you  have  learned  by 
reading,  and  so  with  bathing  and  with  exercise?  Why  then 
do  you  not  act  consistently  in  all  things,  both  when  you  ap- 
proach Caesar,  and  when  you  approach  any  person?  If  you 
maintain  yourself  free  from  perturbation,  free  from  alarm, 
and  steady;  if  you  look  rather  at  the  things  which  are  done 
and  happen  than  are  looked  at  yourself ;  if  you  do  not  envy 
those  who  are  preferred  before  you ;  if  surrounding  circum- 
stances (vXat)  do  not  strike  you  with  fear  or  admiration, 
what  do  you  want  ?  Books  ?  How  or  for  what  purpose  ?  for 
is  not  this  (the  reading  of  books)  a  preparation  for  life?  and 
is  not  life  itself  (living)  made  up  of  certain  other  things  than 
this  ?  This  is  just  as  if  an  athlete  should  weep  when  he  enters 
the  stadium,  because  he  is  not  being  exercised  outside  of  it. 
It  was  for  this  purpose  that  you  used  to  practise  exercise ;  for 
this  purpose  were  used  the  halteres  (weights),*^  the  dust,  the 
young  men  as  antagonists ;  and  do  you  seek  for  those  things 
now  when  it  is  the  time  of  action  ?  This  is  just  as  if  in  the 
topic  (matter)  of  assent  when  appearances  present  them- 
selves, some  of  which  can  be  comprehended,  and  some  can 
not  be  comprehended,  we  should  not  choose  to  distinguish 
them  but  should  choose  to  read  what  has  been  written  about 
comprehension  (x-crrdAT/Vi?). 

What  then  is  the  reason  of  this?  The  reason  is  that  we 
have  never  read  for  this  purpose,  we  have  never  written  for 
this  purpose,  so  that  we  may  in  our  actions  use  in  a  way  con- 
formable to  nature  the  appearances  presented  to  us;  but  we 
terminate  in  this,  in  learning  what  is  said,  and  in  being  able 
to  expound  it  to  another,  in  resolving  a  syllogism,®  and  in 
handling  the  hypothetical  syllogism.  For  this  reason  where 
our  study  (purpose)  is,  there  alone  is  the  impediment.  Would 
you  have  by  all  means  the  things  which  are  not  in  your 
power  ?  Be  prevented  then,  be  hindered,  fail  in  your  purpose. 
But  if  we  read  what  is  written  about  action  (efforts,  )6y07777, 


DISCOURSES  325 

not  that  we  may  see  what  is  said  about  action,  but  that  we 
may  act  well :  if  we  read  what  is  said  about  desire  and  aver- 
sion (avoiding  things),  in  order  that  we  may  neither  fail  in 
our  desires,  nor  fall  into  that  which  we  try  to  avoid ;  if  we 
read  what  is  said  about  duty  (officium),  in  order  that  re- 
membering the  relations  (of  things  to  one  another)  we  may 
do  nothing  irrationally  nor  contrary  to  these  relations;  we 
should  not  be  vexed  in  being  hindered  as  to  our  readings,  but 
we  should  be  satisfied  with  doing  the  acts  which  are  conform- 
able (to  the  relations),  and  we  should  be  reckoning  not  what 
so  far  we  have  been  accustomed  to  reckon :  To-day  I  have 
read  so  many  verses,  I  have  written  so  many ;  but  (  we  should 
say) ,  To-day  I  have  employed  my  action  as  it  is  taught  by  the 
philosophers;  I  have  not  employed  my  desire;  I  have  used 
avoidance  (iKKXidet)  only  with  respect  to  things  which  are 
within  the  power  of  my  will ;  I  have  not  been  afraid  of  such  a 
person,  I  have  not  been  prevailed  upon  by  the  entreaties  of 
another;  I  have  exercised  my  patience,'  my  abstinence,  my 
co-operation  with  others;  and  so  we  should  thank  God  for 
what  we  ought  to  thank  him. 

But  now  we  do  not  know  that  we  also  in  another  way  are 
like  the  many.  Another  man  is  afraid  that  he  shall  not  have 
power :  you  are  afraid  that  you  will.  Do  not  do  so,  my  man ; 
but  as  you  ridicule  him  who  is  afraid  that  he  shall  not  have 
power,  so  ridicule  yourself  also.  For  it  makes  no  difference 
whether  you  are  thirsty  like  a  man  who  has  a  fever,  or  have 
a  dread  of  water  like  a  man  who  is  mad.  Or  how  will  you 
still  be  able  to  say  as  Socrates  did,  "If  so  it  pleases  God,  so 
let  it  be.''"  Do  you  think  that  Socrates  if  he  had  been  eager 
to  pass  his  leisure  in  the  Lyceum  or  in  the  Academy  and  to 
discourse  daily  with  the  young  men,  would  have  readily 
served  in  military  expeditions  so  often  as  he  did,  and  would 
he  not  have  lamented  and  groaned,  ''Wretch  that  I  am;  I 
must  now  be  miserable  here,  when  I  might  be  sunning  my- 
self in  the  Lyceum  ?"  Why,  was  this  your  business,  to  sun 
yourself?  And  is  it  not  your  business  to  be  happy,  to  be 
free  from  hindrance,  free  from  impediment  ?  And  could  he 
still  have  been  Socrates,  if  he  had  lamented  in  this  way :  how 
would  he  still  have  been  able  to  write  Paeans  in  his  prison  ?® 

In  short  remember  this,  that  what  you  shall  prize  which  is 


326  EPICTETUS 

beyond  your  will,  so  far  you  have  destroyed  your  will.  But 
these  things  are  out  of  the  power  of  the  will,  not  only  power 
(authority),  but  also  a  private  condition:  not  only  occupa- 
tion (business),  but  also  leisure. — Now  then  must  I  live  in 
this  tumult? — Why  do  you  say  tumult? — I  mean  among 
many  men. — Well  what  is  the  hardship?  Suppose  that 
you  are  at  Olympia:  imagine  it  to  be  a  panegyris  (pub- 
lic assembly),  where  one  is  calling  out  one  thing,  an- 
other is  doing  another  thing,  and  a  third  is  pushing 
another  person:  in  the  baths  there  is  a  crowd:  and  who 
of  us  is  not  pleased  with  this  assembly,  and  leaves  it 
unwillingly?  Be  not  difficult  to  please  nor  fastidious 
about  what  happens. — Vinegar  is  disagreeable,  for  it  is 
sharp;  honey  is  disagreeable,  for  it  disturbs  my  habit 
of  body.  I  do  not  like  vegetables.  So  also  I  do  not  like 
leisure ;  it  is  a  desert :  I  do  not  like  a  crowd ;  it  is  confusion. — 
But  if  circumstances  make  it  necessary  for  you  to  live  alone 
or  with  a  few,  call  it  quiet,  and  use  the  thing  as  you  ought : 
'talk  with  yourself,  exercise  the  appearances  (presented  to 
you),  work  up  your  preconceptions.  If  you  fall  into  a  crowd, 
call  it  a  celebration  of  games,  a  panegyris,  a  festival :  try  to 
enjoy  the  festival  with  other  men.  For  what  is  a  more  pleas- 
ant sight  to  him  who  loves  mankind  than  a  number  of  men  ? 
We  see  with  pleasure  herds  of  horses  or  oxen :  we  are  de- 
lighted when  we  see  many  ships :  who  is  pained  when  he  sees 
many  men? — But  they  deafen  me  with  their  cries. — Then 
your  hearing  is  impeded.  What  then  is  this  to  you  ?  Is  then 
the  power  of  making  use  of  appearances  hindered  ?  And  who 
prevents  you  from  using  according  to  nature  inclination  to  a 
thing  and  aversion  from  it ;  and  movement  towards  a  thing 
and  movement  from  it?  What  tumult  (confusion)  is  able  to 
do  this? 

,  Do  you  only  bear  in  mind  the  general  rules :  what  is  mine, 
what  is  not  mine;  what  is  given  (permitted)  to  me;  what 
does  God  will  that  I  should  do  now  ?  what  does  he  not  will  ? 
A  little  before  he  willed  you  to  be  at  leisure,  to  talk  with 
yourself,  to  write  about  these  things,  to  read,  to  hear,  to  pre- 
pare yourself.  You  had  sufficient  time  for  this.  Now  he  says 
to  you :  "Come  now  to  the  contest,  show  us  what  you  have 
learned,  how  you  have  practised  the  athletic  art.   How  long 


DISCOURSES  327 

will  you  be  exercised  alone  ?  Now  is  the  opportunity  for  you 
to  learn  whether  you  are  an  athlete  worthy  of  victory,  or  one 
of  those  who  go  about  the  world  and  are  defeated."  Why 
then  are  you  vexed  ?  No  contest  is  without  confusion.  There 
must  be  many  who  exercise  themselves  for  the  contest,  many 
who  call  out  to  those  who  exercise  themselves,  many  masters, 
many  spectators. — But  my  wish  is  to  live  quietly. — Lament 
then  and  groan  as  you  deserve  to  do.  For  what  other  is  a 
greater  punishment  than  this  to  the  untaught  man  and  to  him 
who  disobeys  the  divine  commands,  to  be  grieved,  to  lament, 
to  envy,  in  a  word  to  be  disappointed  and  to  be  unhappy? 
Would  you  not  release  yourself  from  these  things? — And 
how  shall  I  release  myself  ? — Have  you  not  often  heard,  that 
you  ought  to  remove  entirely  desire,  apply  aversion  (turn- 
ing away)  to  those  things  only  which  are  within  your  power, 
that  you  ought  to  give  up  every  thing,  body,  property,  fame, 
books,  tumult,  power,  private  station  ?  for  whatever  way  you 
turn,  you  are  a  slave,  you  are  subjected,  you  are  hindered,  you 
are  compelled,  you  are  entirely  in  the  power  of  others.  But 
keep  the  words  of  Cleanthes  in  readiness. 

"  Lead  me,  O  Zeus,  and  thou  necessity."  * 

Is  it  your  will  that  I  should  go  to  Rome?  I  will  go  to 
Rome.  To  Gyara  ?  I  will  go  to  Gyara.  To  Athens  ?  I  will  go 
to  Athens.  To  prison?  I  will  go  to  prison.  If  you  should 
once  say,  "When  shall  a  man  go  to  Athens?"  you  are  un- 
done. It  is  a  necessary  consequence  that  this  desire,  if  it  is 
not  accomplished,  must  make  you  unhappy ;  and  if  it  is  ac- 
complished, it  must  make  you  vain,  since  you  are  elated  at 
things  at  which  you  ought  not  to  be  elated ;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  if  you  are  impeded,  it  must  make  you  wretched  be- 
cause you  fall  into  that  which  you  would  not  fall  into.  Give 
up  then  all  these  things. — Athens  is  a  good  place. — But  hap- 
piness is  much  better ;  and  to  be  free  from  passions,  free  from 
disturbance,  for  your  affairs  not  to  depend  on  any  man.  There 
is  tumult  at  Rome  and  visits  of  salutation.^  °  But  happiness 
is  an  equivalent  for  all  troublesome  things.  If  then  the  time 
comes  for  these  things,  why  do  you  not  take  away  the  wish 
to  avoid  them  ?  what  necessity  is  there  to  carry  a  burden  like 


328  EPICTETUS 

an  ass,  and  to  be  beaten  with  a  stick  ?  But  if  you  do  not  so, 
consider  that  you  must  always  be  a  slave  to  him  who  has 
it  in  his  power  to  effect  your  release,  and  also  to  impede  you, 
and  you  must  serve  him  as  an  evil  genius. 

There  is  only  one  way  to  happiness,  and  let  this  rule  be 
ready  both  in  the  morning  and  during  the  day  and  by  night : 
the  rule  is  not  to  look  towards  things  which  are  out  of  the 
power  of  our  will,  to  think  that  nothing  is  our  own,  to  give 
up  all  things  to  the  Divinity,  to  Fortune ;  to  make  them  the 
superintendents  of  these  things,  whom  Zeus  also  has  made 
so;  for  a  man  to  observe  that  only  which  is  his  own,  that 
which  can  not  be  hindered;  and  when  we  read,  to  refer  our 
reading  to  this  only,  and  our  writing  and  our  listening.  For 
this  reason  I  can  not  call  the  man  industrious,  if  I  hear  this 
only,  that  he  reads  and  writes ;  and  even  if  a  man  adds  that  he 
reads  all  night,  I  can  not  say  so,  if  he  knows  not  to  what  he 
should  refer  his  reading.  For  neither  do  you  say  that  a  man 
is  industrious  if  he  keeps  awake  for  a  girl ;  nor  do  I.  But  if 
he  does  it  (reads  and  writes)  for  reputation,  I  say  that  he  is 
a  lover  of  reputation.  And  if  he  does  it  for  money,  I  say  that 
he  is  a  lover  of  money,  not  a  lover  of  labour ;  and  if  he  does 
it  through  love  of  learning,  I  say  that  he  is  a  lover  of  learn- 
ing. But  if  he  refers  his  labour  to  his  own  ruling  power 
{rtrenovtK6v\  that  he  may  keep  it  in  a  state  conforma- 
ble to  nature  and  pass  his  life  in  that  state,  then  only  do  I  say 
that  he  is  industrious.  For  never  commend  a  man  on  ac- 
count of  these  things  which  are  common  to  all,  but  on  account 
of  his  opinions  (principles)  ;  for  these  are  the  things  which 
belong  to  each  man,  which  make  his  actions  bad  or  good.  Re- 
membering these  rules,  rejoice  in  that  which  is  present,  and 
be  content  with  the  things  which  come  in  season.^  ^  If  you 
see  any  thing  which  you  have  learned  and  inquired  about  oc- 
curring to  you  in  your  course  of  life  (or  opportunely  applied 
by  you  to  the  acts  of  life) ,  be  delighted  at  it.  If  you  have  laid 
aside  or  have  lessened  bad  disposition  and  a  habit  of  reviling; 
if  you  have  done  so  with  rash  temper,  obscene  words,  hasti- 
ness, sluggishness;  if  you  are  not  moved  by  what  you 
formerly  were,  and  not  in  the  same  way  as  you  once  were, 
you  can  celebrate  a  festival  daily,  to-day  because  you  have  be- 
haved well  in  one  act,  and  to-morrow  because  you  have  be- 


DISCOURSES 


329 


haved  well  in  another.  How  much  greater  is  this  a  reason  for 
making  sacrifices  than  a  consulship  or  the  government  of  a 
province  ?  These  things  come  to  you  from  yourself  and  from 
the  gods.  Remember  this,  who  gives  these  things  and  to 
whom,  and  for  what  purpose.  If  you  cherish  yourself  in  these 
thoughts,  do  you  still  think  that  it  makes  any  difference 
where  you  shall  be  happy,  where  you  shall  please  God  ?  Are 
not  the  gods  equally  distant  from  all  places  ?  Do  they  not  see 
from  all  places  alike  that  which  is  going  on  ? 

NOTES 

*  See  Bishop  Butler's  remarks  in  the  Preface  to  his  Sermons  vol.  ii. 

He  speaks  of  the  "idle  way  of  reading  and  considering  things ;  by  this 
means,  time  even  in  solitude  is  happily  got  rid  of  without  the  pain  of  at- 
tention :  neither  is  any  part  of  it  more  put  to  the  account  of  idleness,  one 
can  scarce  forbear  saying,  is  spent  with  less  thought  than  great  part  of 
that  which  is  spent  in  reading." 

'  "Sed  verae  numerosque  modosque  ediscere  vitae."  Hor.  Epp.  ii.  2, 
144.     M.  Antoninus,  iii.  i. 

■  "The  readers  perhaps  may  grow  tired  with  being  so  often  told  what 
they  will  find  it  very  difficult  to  believe.  That  because  externals  are  not 
in  our  power,  they  are  nothing  to  us.  But  in  excuse  for  this  frequent 
repetition,  it  must  be  considered  that  the  Stoics  had  reduced  themselves 
to  a  necessity  of  dwelling  on  this  consequence,  extravagant  as  it  is,  by 
rejecting  stronger  aids.  One  can  not  indeed  avoid  highly  admiring  the 
very  few,  who  attempted  to  amend  and  exalt  themselves  on  this  founda- 
tion. No  one  perhaps  ever  carried  the  attempt  so  far  in  practice,  and  no 
one  ever  spoke  so  well  in  support  of  the  argument  as  Epictetus.  Yet,  not- 
withstanding his  great  abilities  and  the  force  of  his  example,  one  finds 
him  strongly  complaining  of  the  want  of  success ;  and  one  sees  from  this 
circumstance  as  well  as  from  others  in  the  Stoic  writings,  That  virtue  can 
not  be  maintained  in  the  world  without  the  hope  of  a  future  reward." 
Mrs.  Carter. 

*  Compare  Horace,  Sat.  i.  4,  133 ;   "Noque  enim  cum  lectulus,"  etc. 

*  See  i.  4,  note  S,  iii.  15,  4 ;  and  i.  24,  i,  i.  29,  34.  The  athletes  were 
oiled,  but  they  used  to  rub  themselves  with  dust  to  be  enabled  to  lay 
hold  of  one  another. 

'  M.  Antoninus,  i.  17,  thanks  the  Gods  that  he  did  not  waste  his  time 
in  the  resolution  of  syllogisms. 

'  See  Aulus  Gellius  xvii.  19,  where  he  quotes  Epictetus  on  what  Gellius 
expresses  by  "intolerantia"  and  "incontinentia."  Compare  M.  Antoninus 
(v.  33)  on  the  precept  'Avsxov  and  ^Anixov. 

*  Plato  in  the  Phaedon  (c.  4)  says  that  Socrates  in  his  prison  wrote  a 
hymn  to  Apollo. 

*  Cleanthes  was  a  Stoic  philosopher,  who  also  wrote  some  poetry. 

"  He  alludes  to  the  practice  of  dependents  paying  formal  visits  in  the 
morning  at  the  houses  of  the  great  and  powerful  at  Rome.  Upton  refers 
to  Virgil,  Gecrgics,  ii.  461. 

"  See  Antoninus,  vi.  2 ;  and  ix.  6.  "Thy  present  opmion  founded  on  un- 
derstanding, and  thy  present  conduct  directed  to  social  good,  and  thy 
present  disposition  of  contentment  with  everything  which  happens— that 
is  enough." 


CHAPTER  V 

AGAINST  THE  QUARRELSOME  AND  FEROCIOUS 

THE  wise  and  good  man  neither  himself  fights  with  any 
person,  nor  does  he  allow  another,  so  far  as  he  can 
prevent  it.  And  an  example  of  this  as  well  as  of  all 
other  things  is  proposed  to  us  in  the  life  of  Socrates, 
who  not  only  himself  on  all  occasions  avoided  fights  (quar- 
rels), but  would  not  allow  even  others  to  quarrel.  See  in 
Xenophon's  "Symposium"  how  many  quarrels  he  settled, 
how  further  he  endured  Thrasymachus  and  Polus  and  Calli- 
cles ;  how  he  tolerated  his  wife,  and  how  he  tolerated  his  son 
who  attempted  to  confute  him  and  to  cavil  with  him.  For  he 
remembered  well  that  no  man  has  in  his  power  another  man's 
ruling  principle.  He  wished  therefore  for  nothing  else  than 
that  which  was  his  own.  And  what  is  this  ?  Not  that  this  or 
that  man  may  act  according  to  nature;  for  that  is  a  thing 
which  belongs  to  another;  but  that  while  others  are  doing 
their  own  acts,  as  they  choose,  he  may  nevertheless  be  in  a 
condition  conformable  to  nature  and  live  in  it,  only  doing 
what  is  his  own  to  the  end  that  others  also  may  be  in  a  state 
conformable  to  nature.  For  this  is  the  object  always  set  be- 
fore him  by  the  wise  and  good  man.  Is  it  to  be  commander  (a 
prsetor)  of  an  army?  No;  but  if  it  is  permitted  him,  his  ob- 
ject is  in  this  matter  to  maintain  his  own  ruling  principle.  Is 
it  to  marry  ?  No ;  but  if  marriage  is  allowed  to  him,  in  this 
matter  his  object  is  to  maintain  himself  in  a  condition  con- 
formable to  nature.  But  if  he  would  have  his  son  not  to  do 
wrong  or  his  wife,  he  would  have  what  belongs  to  another 
not  to  belong  to  another:  and  to  be  instructed  is  this,  to  learn 
what  things  are  a  man's  own  and  what  belongs  to  another. 

How  then  is  there  left  any  place  for  fighting  (quarrelling) 
to  a  man  who  has  this  opinion  (which  he  ought  to  have)  ?  Is 
he  surprised  at  any  thing  which  happens,  and  does  it  appear 
new  to  him  ?  Does  he  not  expect  that  which  comes  from  the 
bad  to  be  worse  and  more  grievous  than  what  actually  be- 
falls him?  And  does  he  not  reckon  as  pure  gain  whatever  they 

330 


DISCOURSES  331 

(the  bad)  may  do  which  falls  short  of  extreme  wickedness? 
Such  a  person  has  reviled  you.  Great  thanks  to  him  for  not 
having  struck  you.  But  he  has  struck  me  also.  Great  thanks 
that  he  did  not  wound  you.  But  he  wounded  me  also.  Great 
thanks  that  he  did  not  kill  you.  For  when  did  he  learn  or  in 
what  school  that  man  is  a  tame^  animal,  that  men  love  one 
another,  that  an  act  of  injustice  is  a  great  harm  to  him  who 
does  it.  Since  then  he  has  not  learned  this  and  is  not  con- 
vinced of  it,  why  shall  he  not  follow  that  which  seems  to  be 
for  his  own  interest?  Your  neighbour  has  thrown  stones. 
Have  you  then  done  any  thing  wrong  ?  But  the  things  in  the 
house  have  been  broken.  Are  you  then  a  utensil  ?  No ;  but  a 
free  power  of  will,^  What  then  is  given  to  you  (to  do)  in 
answer  to  this?  If  you  are  like  a  wolf,  you  must  bite  in  re- 
turn, and  throw  more  stones.  But  if  you  consider  what  is 
proper  for  a  man,  examine  your  storehouse,  see  with  what 
faculties  you  came  into  the  world.  Have  you  the  disposition 
of  a  wild  beast,  have  you  the  disposition  of  revenge  for  an  in- 
jury? When  is  a  horse  wretched?  When  he  is  deprived  of 
his  natural  faculties,  not  when  he  can  not  crow  like  a  cock, 
but  when  he  can  not  run.  When  is  a  dog  wretched  ?  Not 
when  he  can  not  fly,  but  when  he  can  not  track  his  game.  Is 
then  a  man  also  unhappy  in  this  way,  not  because  he  can  not 
strangle  lions  or  embrace  statues,^  for  he  did  not  come  into 
the  world  in  the  possession  of  certain  powers  from  nature  for 
this  purpose,  but  because  he  has  lost  his  probity  and  his  fidel- 
ity? People  ought  to  meet  and  lament  such  a  man  for  the 
misfortunes  into  which  he  has  fallen ;  not  indeed  to  lament 
because  a  man  has  been  bom  or  has  died,*  but  because  it  has 
happened  to  him  in  his  life  time  to  have  lost  the  things  which 
are  his  own,  not  that  which  he  received  from  his  father,  not 
his  land  and  house,  and  his  inn,  and  his  slaves ;  for  not  one 
of  these  things  is  a  man's  own,  but  all  belong  to  others,  are 
service,  and  subject  to  account  (vTcevQwa),  at  different 
times  given  to  different  persons  by  those  who  have  them  in 
their  power :  but  I  mean  the  things  which  belong  to  him  as 
a  man,  the  marks  (stamps)  in  his  mind  with  which  he  came 
into  the  world,  such  as  we  seek  also  on  coins,  and  if  we  find 
them,  we  approve  of  the  coins,  and  if  we  do  not  find  the 
marks,  we  reject  them.  What  is  the  stamp  on  this  sestertius  ? 


332 


EPICTETUS 


The  stamp  of  Trajan.  Present  it.  It  is  the  stamp  of  Nero. 
Throw  it  away :  it  can  not  be  accepted,  it  is  counterfeit.^  So 
also  in  this  case :  What  is  the  stamp  of  his  opinions  ?  It  is 
gentleness,  a  sociable  disposition,  a  tolerant  temper,  a  disposi- 
tion to  mutual  affection.  Produce  these  qualities.  I  accept 
them :  I  consider  this  man  a  citizen,  I  accept  him  as  a  neigh- 
bour, a  companion  in  my  voyages.  Only  see  that  he  has  not 
Nero's  stamp.  Is  he  passionate,  is  he  full  of  resentment,  is  he 
fault-finding?  If  the  whim  seizes  him,  does  he  break  the 
heads  of  those  who  come  in  his  way?  (If  so),  why  then  did 
you  say  that  he  is  a  man?  Is  every  thing  judged  (deter- 
mined) by  the  bare  form  ?  If  that  is  so,  say  that  the  form  in 
wax*'  is  an  apple  and  has  the  smell  and  taste  of  an  apple.  But 
the  external  figure  is  not  enough :  neither  then  is  the  nose 
enough  and  the  eyes  to  make  the  man,  but  he  must  have  the 
opinions  of  a  man.  Here  is  a  man  who  does  not  listen  to 
reason,  who  does  not  know  when  he  is  refuted :  he  is  an  ass : 
in  another  man  the  sense  of  shame  is  become  dead :  he  is  good 
for  nothing,  he  is  any  thing  rather  than  a  man.  This  man 
seeks  whom  he  may  meet  and  kick  or  bite,  so  that  he  is  not 
even  a  sheep  or  an  ass,  but  a  kind  of  wild  beast. 

What  then?  would  you  have  me  to  be  despised? — By 
whom  ?  by  those  who  know  you  ?  and  how  shall  those  who 
know  you  despise  a  man  who  is  gentle  and  modest?  Perhaps 
you  mean  by  those  who  do  not  know  you  ?  What  is  that  to 
you  ?  For  no  other  artisan  cares  for  the  opinion  of  those  who 
know  not  his  art. — But  they  will  be  more  hostile  to  me  for 
this  reason. — Why  do  you  say  "me"  ?  Can  any  man  injure 
your  will,  or  prevent  you  from  using  in  a  natural  way  the  ap- 
pearances which  are  presented  to  you?  In  no  way  can  he. 
Why  then  are  you  still  disturbed  and  why  do  you  choose  to 
show  yourself  afraid  ?  And  why  do  you  not  come  forth  and 
proclaim  that  you  are  at  peace  with  all  men  whatever  they 
may  do,  and  laugh  at  those  chiefly  who  think  that  they  can 
harm  you  ?  These  slaves,  you  can  say,  know  not  either  who  I 
am,  nor  where  lies  my  good  or  my  evil,  because  they  have  no 
access  to  the  things  which  are  mine. 

In  this  way  also  those  who  occupy  a  strong  city  mock  the 
besiegers,  (and  say)  :  "What  trouble  these  men  are  now  tak- 
ing for  nothing :  our  wall  is  secure,  we  have  food  for  a  very 


DISCOURSES  333 

long  time,  and  all  other  resources."  These  are  the  things 
which  make  a  city  strong  and  impregnable :  but  nothing  else 
than  his  opinions  makes  a  man's  soul  impregnable.  For  what 
wall  is  so  strong,  or  what  body  is  so  hard,  or  what  possession 
is  so  safe,  or  what  honour  (rank,  character)  so  free  from  as- 
sault (as  a  man's  opinions)  ?  All  (other)  things  every  where 
are  perishable,  easily  taken  by  assault,  and  if  any  man  in  any 
way  is  attached  to  them,  he  must  be  disturbed,  expect  what  is 
bad,  he  must  fear,  lament,  find  his  desires  disappointed,  and 
fall  into  things  which  he  would  avoid.  Then  do  we  not 
choose  to  make  secure  the  only  means  of  safety  which  are 
offered  to  us,  and  do  we  not  choose  to  withdraw  ourselves 
from  that  which  is  perishable  and  servile,  and  to  labour  at 
the  things  which  are  imperishable  and  by  nature  free;  and 
do  we  not  remember  that  no  man  either  hurts  another  or 
does  good  to  another,  but  that  a  man's  opinion  about  each 
thing,  is  that  which  hurts  him,  is  that  which  overturns  him ; 
this  is  fighting,  this  is  civil  discord,  this  is  war  ?  That  which 
made  Eteocles  and  Polynices'^  enemies  was  nothing  else  than 
this  opinion  which  they  had  about  royal  power,  their  opinion 
about  exile,  that  the  one  is  the  extreme  of  evils,  the  other  the 
greatest  good.  Now  this  is  the  nature  of  every  man  to  seek 
the  good,  to  avoid  the  bad  f  to  consider  him  who  deprives 
us  of  the  one  and  involves  us  in  the  other  an  enemy  and 
treacherous,  even  if  he  be  a  brother,  or  a  son,  or  a  father. 
For  nothing  is  more  akin  to  us  than  the  good :  therefore  if 
these  things  (externals)  are  good  and  evil,  neither  is  a 
father  a  friend  to  sons,  nor  a  brother  to  a  brother,  but 
all  the  world  is  every  where  full  of  enemies,  treacherous 
men,  and  sycophants.  But  if  the  will  (itpoatpedtg,  the  pur- 
pose, the  intention)  being  what  it  ought  to  be,  is  the  only 
good ;  and  if  the  will  being  such  as  it  ought  not  to  be,  is  the 
only  evil,  where  is  there  any  strife,  where  is  there  reviling? 
about  what  ?  about  the  things  which  do  not  concern  us  ?  and 
strife  with  whom  ?  with  the  ignorant,  the  unhappy,  with  those 
who  are  deceived  about  the  chief  things  ? 

Remembering  this  Socrates  managed  his  own  house  and 
endured  a  very  ill-tempered  wife  and  a  foolish  (ungrateful?) 
son.^  For  in  what  did  she  show  her  bad  temper?  In  pouring 
water  on  his  head  as  much  as  she  liked,  and  in  trampling  on 


334 


EPICTETUS 


the  cake  (sent  to  Socrates).  And  what  is  this  to  me,  if  I 
think  that  these  things  are  nothing  to  me?  But  this  is  my 
business ;  and  neither  tyrant  shall  check  my  will  nor  a  master ; 
nor  shall  the  many  check  me  who  am  only  one,  nor  shall  the 
stronger  check  me  who  am  the  weaker;  for  this  power  of 
being  free  from  check  (hindrance)  is  given  by  God  to  every 
man.  For  these  opinions  make  love  in  a  house  (family),  con- 
cord in  a  state,  among  nations  peace,  and  gratitude  to  God ; 
they  make  a  man  in  all  things  cheerful  (confident)  in  ex- 
ternals as  about  things  which  belong  to  others,  as  about 
things  which  are  of  no  value.^*^  We  indeed  are  able  to  write 
and  to  read  these  things,  and  to  praise  them  when  they  are 
read,  but  we  do  not  even  come  near  to  being  convinced  of 
them.  Therefore  what  is  said  of  the  Lacedaemonians,  "Lions 
at  home,  but  in  Ephesus  foxes,"  will  fit  in  our  case  also, 
"Lions  in  the  school,  but  out  of  it  foxes."^^ 

NOTES 

*  See  ii.  lo,  14,  iv.  i.  So  Plato  says  (Legg.  vi.),  that  a  man  who 
has  had  right  education  is  wont  to  be  the  most  divine  and  the  tamest  of 
animals.  Upton. 

On  the  doing  wrong  to  another,  see  Plato's  Crito  and  Epictetus  iv.  i. 
^  See  iii.  i. 

*  Like  Hercules  and  Diogenes.   See  iii.  12.  2. 

*  The  allusion  is  to  a  passage  (a  fragment)  in  the  Cresphontes  of  Eu- 
ripides translated  by  Cicero  into  Latin  Iambics  (Tusc.  Disp  i.  48) — 

edet  yap  rfjuS-i  avA.Xoyov  icotovfxevov^ 
Tov  (pvvra  Bprjveiv  eie,  od'  epx^Tat  icdica. 
Tov  S'av  Qavovra  koi  Ttovoov  itSTtavfxevov 
Xcctpovra^y  ezxprf/iovvrag  kKiciuneiv  Sofioov. 

Herodotus  (v.  4)  ^ays  of  the  Trausi,  a  Thracian  tribe :  "when  a  child  is 
born,  the  relatives  sit  round  it  and  lament  over  all  the  evils  which  it 
must  suffer  on  coming  into  the  world  and  enumerate  all  the  calamities 
of  mankind :  but  when  one  dies,  they  hide  him  in  the  earth  with  rejoicing 
and  pleasure,  reckoning  all  the  evils  from  which  he  is  now  released  and 
in  possession   of  all   happiness." 

'  This  does  not  mean,  it  is  said,  that  Nero  issued  counterfeit  coins,  for 
there  are  extant  many  coins  of  Nero  which  both  in  form  and  in  the 
purity  of  the  metal  are  complete.  A  learned  numismatist,  Francis  Wise, 
fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Oxford,  in  a  letter  to  Upton,  says  that  he  can 
discover  no  reason  for  Nero's  coins  being  rejected  in  commercial  deal- 
ings after  his  death  except  the  fact  of  the  tyrant  having  been  declared  by 
the  Senate  to  be  an  enemy  to  the  Commonwealth.  (Suetonius,  Nero,  c. 
49-)  When  Domitian  was  murdered,  the  Senate  ordered  his  busts  to  be 
taken  down,  as  the  French  now  do  after  a  revolution  and  all  memorials 
of  him  to  be  destroyed  (Suetonius,  Domitian,  c.  23).  Dion  also  reports 


DISCOURSES  335 

(lx)  that  when  Caligula  was  murdered,  it  was  ordered  that  all  the  trass 
coin  which  bore  his  image  should  be  melted,  and,  I  suppose,  coined  again. 
There  is  more  on  this  subject  in  Wise's  letter. 

I  do  not  believe  that  genuine  coins  would  be  refused  in  commercial 
dealings  for  the  reasons  which  Wise  gives,  at  least  not  refused  in  parts 
distant  from  Rome.  Perhaps  Epictetus  means  that  some  people  would 
not  touch  the  coins  of  the  detestable  Nero. 

'  He  says  to  Kr/ptvov,  which  Mrs.  Carter  translates  "a  piece  of  wax." 
Perhaps  it  means  "a  piece  of  wax  in  the  form  of  an  apple." 

'  Eteocles  and  Polynices  were  the  sons  of  the  unfortunate  CEdipus,  who 
quarrelled  about  the  kingship  of  Thebes  and  killed  one  another.  This 
quarrel  is  the  subject  of  the  Seven  against  Thebes  of  .^schylus  and  the 
PhoeniSsae  of  Euripides.     See  ii,  22,  note  3. 

*  "Every  man  in  everything  he  does  naturally  acts  upon  the  fore- 
thought and  apprehension  of  avoiding  evil  or  obtaining  good."  Bp.  But- 
ler, Analogy,  Chap.  2.  The  bishop's  "naturally"  is  the  <pvaii  of  Epicte- 
tus. 

'  Socrates'  wife  Xanthippe  is  charged  by  her  eldest  son  Lamprocles 
with  being  so  ill-tempered  as  to  be  past  all  endurance  (Xenophon, 
Memorab.  ii.  2,  7).  Xenophon  in  this  chapter  has  reported  the  conversa- 
tion of  Socrates  with  his  son  on  this  matter. 

Diogenes  Laertius  (ii.)  tells  the  story  of  Xanthippe  pouring  water  on 
the  head  of  Socrates,  and  dirty  water,  as  Seneca  says  (De  Constantia, 
c.  18).  ^lian  (xi.  12)  reports  that  Alcibiades  sent  Socrates  a  large  and 
good  cake,  which  Xanthippe  trampled  under  her  feet.  Socrates  only 
laughed  and  said,  "Well  then,  you  will  not  have  your  share  of  it."  The 
philosopher  showed  that  his  philosophy  was  practical  by  enduring  the 
torment  of  a  very  ill-tempered  wife,  one  of  the  greatest  calamities  that 
can  happen  to  a  man,  and  the  trouble  of  an  undutiful  son. 

"  This  is  one  of  the  wisest  and  noblest  expressions  of  Epictetus. 

"See  Aristophanes,  the  "Peace,"  v.  1188: 

icoXXa.  yap  Sij  //'  rfSlKTfdav^ 
ovre?  oiKoi  jukv  Xeovrsi, 
iv  jidxv  ^'  ccXatiteKSi. 


CHAPTER  VI 

AGAINST   THOSE    WHO   LAMENT    OVER   BEING   PITIED 

I  AM  grieved,  a  man  says,  at  being  pitied.  Whether  then 
is  the  fact  of  your  being  pitied  a  thing  which  concerns 
you,  or  those  who  pity  you  ?  Well,  is  it  in  your  power  to 
stop  this  pity  ? — It  is  in  my  power,  if  I  show  them  that  I 
do  not  require  pity. — And  whether  then  are  you  in  the  condi- 
tion of  not  deserving  (requiring)  pity,  or  are  you  not  in  that 
condition  ? — I  think  that  I  am  not :  but  these  persons  do  not 
pity  me,  for  the  things  for  which,  if  they  ought  to  pity  me,  it 
would  be  proper,  I  mean,  for  my  faults ;  but  they  pity  me  for 
my  poverty,  for  not  possessing  honourable  offices,  for  dis- 
eases and  deaths  and  other  such  things. — Whether  then  are 
you  prepared  to  convince  the  many,  that  not  one  of  these 
things  is  an  evil,  but  that  it  is  possible  for  a  man  who  is  poor 
and  has  no  office  (  dydpxovrt  )  and  enjoys  no  honour  to  be 
happy ;  or  to  shew  yourself  to  them  as  rich  and  in  power  ? 
For  the  second  of  these  things  belongs  to  a  man  who  is  boast- 
ful, silly  and  good  for  nothing.  And  consider  by  what  means 
the  pretence  must  be  supported.  It  will  be  necessary  for  you 
to  hire  slaves  and  to  possess  a  few  silver  vessels,  and  to  ex- 
hibit them  in  public,  if  it  is  possible,  though  they  are  often 
the  same,  and  to  attempt  to  conceal  the  fact  that  they  are  the 
same,  and  to  have  splendid  garments,  and  all  other  things  for 
display,  and  to  show  that  you  are  a  man  honoured  by  the 
great,  and  to  try  to  sup  at  their  houses,  or  to  be  supposed  to 
sup  there,  and  as  to  your  person  to  employ  some  mean  arts, 
that  you  may  appear  to  be  more  handsome  and  nobler  than 
you  are.  These  things  you  must  contrive,  if  you  choose  to 
go  by  the  second  path  in  order  not  to  be  pitied.  But  the  first 
way  is  both  impracticable  and  long,  to  attempt  the  very  thing 
which  Zeus  has  not  been  able  to  do,  to  convince  all  men  what 
things  are  good  and  bad.^  Is  this  power  given  to  you? 
This  only  is  given  to  you,  to  convince  yourself ;  and  you  have 
not  convinced  yourself.  Then  I  ask  you,  do  you  attempt  to 
persuade  other  men  ?  and  who  has  lived  so  long  with  you  as 

336 


DISCOURSES  337 

you  with  yourself  ?  and  who  has  so  much  power  of  convinc- 
ing you  as  you  have  of  convincing  yourself ;  and  who  is  bet- 
ter disposed  and  nearer  to  you  than  you  are  to  yourself? 
How  then  have  you  not  yet  convinced  yourself  in  order  to 
learn?  At  present  are  not  things  upside  down?  Is  this 
what  you  have  been  earnest  about  doing,^  to  learn  to  be  free 
from  grief  and  free  from  disturbance,  and  not  to  be  humbled 
(abject),  and  to  be  free?  Have  you  not  heard  then  that 
there  is  only  one  way  which  leads  to  this  end,  to  give  up 
(dismiss)  the  things  which  do  not  depend  on  the  will,  to 
withdraw  from  them,  and  to  admit  that  they  belong  to 
others?  For  another  man  then  to  have  an  opinion  about 
you,  of  what  kind  is  it? — It  is  a  thing  independent  of  the 
will. — Then  is  it  nothing  to  you  ? — It  is  nothing. — When 
then  you  are  still  vexed  at  this  and  disturbed,  do  you  think 
that  you  are  convinced  about  good  and  evil? 

Will  you  not  then,  letting  others  alone,  be  to  yourself  both 
scholar  and  teacher? — The  rest  of  mankind  will  look  after 
this,  whether  it  is  to  their  interest  to  be  and  to  pass  their  lives 
in  a  state  contrary  to  nature :  but  to  me  no  man  is  nearer  than 
myself.  What  then  is  the  meaning  of  this,  that  I  havie  lis- 
tened to  the  words  of  the  philosophers  and  I  assent  to  them, 
but  in  fact  I  am  no  way  made  easier  (more  content)  ?  Am  I 
so  stupid  ?  And  yet  in  all  other  things  such  as  I  have  chosen, 
I  have  not  been  found  very  stupid;  but  I  learned  letters 
quickly,  and  to  wrestle,  and  geometry,  and  to  resolve  syllo- 
gisms. Has  not  then  reason  convinced  me?  and  indeed  no 
other  things  have  I  found  from  the  beginning  so  approved 
and  chosen  (as  the  things  which  are  rational)  :  and  now  I 
read  about  these  things,  hear  about  them,  write  about  them ; 
I  have  so  far  discovered  no  reason  stronger  than  this  (living 
according  to  nature).  In  what  then  am  I  deficient?  Have 
the  contrary  opinions  not  been  eradicated  from  me  ?  Have 
the  notions  (opinions)  themselves  not  been  exercised  nor 
used  to  be  applied  to  action,  but  as  armour  are  laid  aside  and 
rusted  and  can  not  fit  me?  And  yet  neither  in  the  exercises 
of  the  palsestra,  nor  in  writing  or  reading  am  I  satisfied  with 
learning,  but  I  turn  up  and  down  the  syllogisms  which  are 
proposed,  and  I  make  others,  and  sophistical  syllogisms  also. 
But  the  necessary  theorems  by  proceeding  from  which  a  man 

22 


338  EPICTETUS 

can  become  free  from  grief,  fear,  passions  (affects),  hin- 
drance, and  a  free  man,  these  I  do  not  exercise  myself  in  nor 
do  I  practise  in  these  the  proper  practice  (study).  Then  I 
care  about  what  others  will  say  of  me,  whether  1  shall  appear 
to  them  worth  notice,  whether  I  shall  appear  happy. — 

Wretched  man,  will  you  not  see  what  you  are  saying  about 
yourself?     What  do  you  appear  to  yourself  to  be?   in  your 
opinions,  in  your  desires,  in  your  aversions  from  things   (  hv 
Tw  kKK\ivEiv\  in  your  movements  (purposes,  kv  op^^)  in  your 
preparation  (for  anything),  in  your  designs  (plans), -and  in 
other  acts  suitable  to  a  man?     But  do  you  trouble  yourself 
about  this,  whether  others  pity  you? — Yes,  but  I  am  pitied 
not  as  I  ought  to  be. — Are  you  then  pained  at  this  ?  and  is  he 
who  is  pained,  an  object  of  pity  ? — Yes. — How  then  are  you 
pitied  not  as  you  ought  to  be  ?     For  by  the  very  act  that  you 
feel  (suffer)  about  being  pitied,  you  make  yourself  deserving 
of  pity.    What  then  says  Antisthenes?    Have  you  not  heard  ? 
"It  is  a  royal  thing,  O  Cyrus,  to  do  right  (well)  and  to  be 
ill  spoken  of."     My  head  is  sound,  and  all  think  that  I  have 
the  headache.     What  do  I  care  for  that?     I  am  free  from 
fever,  and  people  sympathize  with  me  as  if  I  had  a  fever, 
(and  say),  "Poor  man,  for  so  long  a  time  you  have  not 
ceased  to  have  fever."     I  also  say  with  a  sorrowful  counte- 
nance, "In  truth  it  is  now  a  long  time  that  I  have  been  ill." 
What  will  happen  then?     As  God  may  please:   and  at  the 
same  time  I  secretly  laugh  at  those  who  are  pitying  me. 
What  then  hinders  the  same  thing  being  done  in  this  case 
also  ?     I  am  poor,  but  I  have  a  right  opinion  about  pov- 
erty.    Why  then  do  I  care  if  they  pity  me  for  my  pov- 
erty?    I    am    not    in    power    (not    a    magistrate)  :     but 
others  are:    and   I   have  the  opinion   which   I   ought   to 
have  about  having  and  not  having  power.     Let  them  look 
to  it  who  pity  me :  but  I  am  neither  hungry  nor  thirsty  nor 
do  I  suffer  cold;  but  because  they  are  hungry  or  thirsty 
they  think  that  I  too  am.     What  then  shall  I  do  for  them  ? 
Shall  I  go  about  and  proclaim  and  say,  "Be  not  mistaken, 
men,  I  am  very  well,  I  do  not  trouble  myself  about  poverty, 
nor  want  of  power,  nor  in  a  word  about  anything  else  than 
right  opinions.     These  I  have  free  from  restraint.     I  care 
for  nothing  at  all." — What   foolish  talk   is  this?     How 


DISCOURSES  339 

do  I  possess  right  opinions  when  I  am  not  content  with  being 
what  I  am,  but  am  uneasy  about  what  I  am  supposed  to  be  ? 

But  you  say,  others  will  get  more  and  be  preferred  to  me. — 
What  then  is  more  reasonable  than  for  those  who  have  la- 
boured about  any  thing  to  have  more  in  that  thing  in  which 
they  have  laboured  ?  They  have  laboured  for  power,  you 
have  laboured  about  opinions ;  and  they  have  laboured  for 
wealth,  you  for  the  proper  use  of  appearances.  See  if  they 
have  more  than  you  in  this  about  which  you  have  laboured, 
and  which  they  neglect ;  if  they  assent  better  than  you  with 
respect  to  the  natural  rules  (measures)  of  things;  if  they  are 
less  disappointed  than  you  in  their  desires ;  if  they  fall  less 
into  things  which  they  would  avoid  than  you  do ;  if  in  their 
intentions,  if  in  the  things  which  they  propose  to  themselves, 
if  in  their  purposes,  if  in  their  motions  towards  an  object  they 
take  a  better  aim ;  if  they  better  observe  a  proper  behaviour, 
as  men,  as  sons,  as  parents,  and  so  on  as  to  the  other  names 
by  which  we  express  the  relations  of  life.  But  if  they  exer- 
cise power,  and  you  do  not,  will  you  not  choose  to  tell  your- 
self the  truth,  that  you  do  nothing  for  the  sake  of  this 
(power),  and  they  do  all  ?  And  it  is  most  unreasonable  that 
he  who  looks  after  anything  should  obtain  less  than  he  who 
does  not  look  after  it. 

Not  so :  but  since  I  care  about  right  opinions,  it  is  more 
reasonable  for  me  to  have  power. — Yes  in  the  matter  about 
which  you  do  care,  in  opinions.  But  in  a  matter  in  which 
they  have  cared  more  than  you,  give  way  to  them.  The  case 
is  just  the  same  as  if  because  you  have  right  opinions,  you 
thought  that  in  using  the  bow  you  should  hit  the  mark  better 
than  an  archer,  and  in  working  in  metal  you  should  succeed 
better  than  a  smith.  Give  up  then  your  earnestness  about 
opinions  and  employ  yourself  about  the  things  which  you 
wish  to  acquire ;  and  then  lament,  if  you  do  not  succeed ;  for 
you  deserve  to  lament.  But  now  you  say  that  you  are  occu- 
pied with  other  things,  that  you  are  looking  after  other 
things ;  but  the  many  say  this  truly,  that  one  act  has  no  com- 
munity with  another.^  He  who  has  risen  in  the  morning 
seeks  whom  (of  the  house  of  Caesar)  he  shall  salute,  to 
whom  he  shall  say  something  agreeable,  to  whom  he  shall 
send  a  present,  how  he  shall  please  the  dancing  man,  how  by 


340  EPICTETUS 

bad  behaviour  to  one  he  may  please  another.  When  he  prays, 
he  prays  about  these  things ;  when  he  sacrifices,  he  sacrifices 
for  these  things :  the  saying  of  Pythagoras 

"Let  sleep  not  come  upon  thy  languid  eyes"* 

he  transfers  to  these  things.  Where  have  I  failed  in  the  mat- 
ters pertaining  to  flattery?  What  have  I  done?  Any  thing 
like  a  free  man,  any  thing  like  a  noble  minded  man  ?  And  if 
he  finds  any  thing  of  the  kind,  he  blames  and  accuses  him- 
self :  *' Why  did  you  say  this  ?  Was  it  not  in  your  power  to 
lie  ?  Even  the  philosophers  say  that  nothing  hinders  us  from 
telling  a  lie."  But  do  you,  if  indeed  you  have  cared  about 
nothing  else  except  the  proper  use  of  appearances,  as  soon 
as  you  have  risen  in  the  morning  reflect,  "What  do  I  want  in 
order  to  be  free  from  passion  (affects),  and  free  from  per- 
turbation ?  What  am  I  ?  Am  I  a  poor  body,  a  piece  of  prop- 
erty, a  thing  of  which  something  is  said?  I  am  none  of 
these.  But  what  am  I  ?  I  am  a  rational  animal.  What  then  is 
required  of  me?"  Reflect  on  your  acts.  Where  have  I 
omitted  the  things  which  conduce  to  happiness  (  evpotav  )  ? 
What  have  I  done  which  is  either  unfriendly  or  unsocial? 
what  have  I  not  done  a*s  to  these  things  which  I  ought  to 
have  done  ? 

So  great  then  being  the  difference  in  desires,  actions, 
wishes,  would  you  still  have  the  same  share  with  others  in 
those  things  about  which  you  have  not  laboured,  and  they 
have  laboured?  Then  are  you  surprised  if  they  pity  you,  and 
are  you  vexed?  But  they  are  not  vexed  if  you  pity  them. 
Why  ?  Because  they  are  convinced  that  they  have  that  which 
is  good,  and  you  are  not  convinced.  For  this  reason  you  are 
not  satisfied  with  your  own,  but  you  desire  that  which  they 
have :  btit  they  are  satisfied  with  their  own,  and  do  not  de- 
sire what  you  have :  since  if  you  were  really  convinced,  that 
with  respect  to  what  is  good,  it  is  you  who  are  the  possessor 
of  it  and  that  they  have  missed  it,  you  would  not  even  have 
thought  of  what  they  say  about  you. 

NOTES 

*  Here  it  is  implied  that  there  are  things  which  God  can  not  do.    Per- 
haps he  means  that  as  God  has  given  man  certain  powers  of  will  and 


DISCOURSES  341 

therefore  of  action,  he  can  not  at  the  same  time  exercise  the  contradic- 
tory powers  of  forcing  man's  will  and  action ;  for  this  would  be  at  the 
same  time  to  give  power  and  to  take  it  away.  Butler  remarks  (Analogy, 
chap.  5)  "the  present  is  so  far  from  proving  in  event  a  discipline  of  vir- 
tue to  the  generality  of  men  that  on  the  contrary  they  seem  to  make  it  a 
discipline  of  vice."  In  fact  all  men  are  not  convinced  and  can  not  be 
convinced  in  the  present  constitution  of  things  "what  things  are  good 
and  bad." 

*  Something  is  perhaps  wrong  in  the  text  here. 

*  Schweig.  says  that  he  has  not  observed  that  this  proverb  is  men- 
tioned by  any  other  writer,  and  that  he  does  not  quite  see  the  meaning  of 
it,  unless  it  be  what  he  expresses  in  the  Latin  version  (iv.  10,  24),  "al- 
terum  opus  cum  altero  nihil  commune  habet."  I  think  that  the  context 
explains  it :  if  you  wish  to  obtain  a  particular  end,  employ  the  proper 
means,  and  not  the  means  which  do  not  make  for  that  end. 

*  Epictetus  is  making  a  parody  of  the  verses  of  Pythagoras.  See 
Schweig.'s  remarks  on  the  words  "He  who  has  risen,  etc."  I  have  of 
necessity  translated  KaKOTfQicrduevoi  in  an  active  sense;  but  if  this  is 
right,  I  do  not  understand  how  the  word  is  used  so. 


CHAPTER  VII 

ON  FREEDOM  FROM  FEAR 

WHAT  makes  the  tyrant  formidable?  The  guards, 
you  say,  and  their  swords,  and  the  men  of  the  bed- 
chamber, and  those  who  exclude  them  who  would 
enter.  Why  then  if  you  bring  a  boy  (child)  to  the 
tyrant  when  he  is  with  his  guards,  is  he  not  afraid;  or 
is  it  because  the  child  does  not  understand  these  things? 
If  then  any  man  does  understand  what  guards  are  and 
that  they  have  swords,  and  comes  to  the  tyrant  for  this  very 
purpose  because  he  wishes  to  die  on  account  of  some  circum- 
stance and  seeks  to  die  easily  by  the  hand  of  another,  is  he 
afraid  of  the  guards  ?  No,  for  he  wishes  for  the  thing  which 
makes  the  guards  formidable.  If  then  any  man  neither  wish- 
ing to  die  nor  to  live  by  all  means,  but  only  as  it  may  be  per- 
mitted, approaches  the  tyrant,  what  hinders  him  from  ap- 
proaching the  tyrant  without  fear?  Nothing,  If  then  a  man 
has  the  same  opinion  about  his  property  as  the  man  whom  I 
have  instanced  has  about  his  body ;  and  also  about  his  chil- 
dren and  his  wife,  and  in  a  word  is  so  affected  by  some  mad- 
ness or  despair  that  he  cares  not  whether  he  possesses  them 
or  not,  but  like  children  who  are  playing  with  shells  care 
(quarrel)  about  the  play,  but  do  not  trouble  themselves  about 
the  shells,  so  he  too  has  set  no  value  on  the  materials 
(things),  but  values  the  pleasure  that  he  has  with  them  and 
the  occupation,  what  tyrant  is  then  formidable  to  him,  or 
what  guards,  or  what  swords  ? 

Then  through  madness  is  it  possible  for  a  man  to  be  so 
disposed  towards  these  things,  and  the  Galilaeans  through 
habit,^  and  is  it  possible  that  no  man  can  learn  from  reason 
and  from  demonstration  that  God  has  made  all  the  things  in 
the  universe  and  the  universe  itself  completely  free  from 
hindrance  and  perfect,  and  the  parts  of  it  for  the  use  of  the 
whole?  All  other  animals  indeed  are  incapable  of  compre- 
hending the  administration  of  it;  but  the  rational  animal 
man  has  faculties  for  the  consideration  of  all  these  things, 

342 


DISCOURSES  343' 

and  for  understanding  that  it  is  a  part,  and  what  kind  of  a 
part  it  is,  and  that  it  is  right  for  the  parts  to  be  subordinate 
to  the  whole.  And  besides  this  being  naturally  noble,  mag- 
nanimous and  free,  man  sees  that  of  the  things  which  sur- 
round him  some  are  free  from  hindrance  and  in  his  power, 
and  the  other  things  are  subject  to  hindrance  and  in  the 
power  of  others ;  that  the  things  which  are  free  from  hind- 
rance are  in  the  power  of  the  will ;  and  those  which  are  sub- 
ject to  hindrance  are  the  things  which  are  not  in  the  power 
of  the  will.  And  for  this  reason  if  he  thinks  that  his  good 
and  his  interest  be  in  these  things  only  which  are  free  from 
hindrance  and  in  his  own  power,  he  will  be  free,  prosperous, 
happy,  free  from  harm,  magnanimous,  pious,  thankful  to 
God^  for  all  things;  in  no  matter  finding  fault  with  any  of 
the  things  which  have  not  been  put  in  his  power,  nor  blaming 
any  of  them.  But  if  he  thinks  that  his  good  and  his  interest 
are  in  externals  and  in  things  which  are  not  in  the  power  of 
his  will,  he  must  of  necessity  be  hindered,  be  impeded,  be  a 
slave  to  those  who  have  the  power  over  the  things  which  he 
admires  (desires)  and  fears:  and  he  must  of  necessity  be  im- 
pious because  he  thinks  that  he  is  harmed  by  God,  and  he 
must  be  unjust  because  he  always  claims  more  than  belongs 
to  him ;  and  he  must  of  necessity  be  abject  and  mean. 

What  hinders  a  man,  who  has  clearly  separated  (compre- 
hended), these  things,  from  living  with  a  light  heart  and 
bearing  easily  the  reins,  quietly  expecting  every  thing  which 
can  happen,  and  enduring  that  which  has  already  happened? 
Would  you  have  me  to  bear  poverty?  Come  and  you  will 
know  what  poverty  is  when  it  has  found  one  who  can  act  well 
the  part  of  a  poor  man.  Would  you  have  me  to  possess 
power  ?  Let  me  have  power,  and  also  the  trouble  of  it.  Well, 
banishment  ?  Wherever  I  shall  go,  there  it  will  be  well  with 
me ;  for  here  also  where  I  am,  it  was  not  because  of  the  place 
that  it  was  well  with  me,  but  because  of  my  opinions  which  I 
shall  carry  off  with  me :  for  neither  can  any  man  deprive  me 
of  them ;  but  my  opinions  alone  are  mine  and  they  can  not  be 
taken  from  me,  and  I  am  satisfied  while  I  have  them,  wher- 
ever I  may  be  and  whatever  I  am  doing.  But  now  it  is  time 
to  die.  Why  do  you  say,  to  die?  Make  no  tragedy  show  of 
the  thing,  but  speak  of  it  as  it  is :  it  is  now  time  for  the  matter 


344  EPICTETUS 

(of  the  body)  to  be  resolved  into  the  things  out  of  which  it 
was  composed.  And  what  is  the  formidable  thing  here  ?  what 
is  going  to  perish  of  the  things  which  are  in  the  universe?^ 
what  new  thing  or  wondrous  is  going  to  happen?  Is  it  for 
this  reason  that  a  tyrant  is  formidable  ?  Is  it  for  this  reason 
that  the  guards  appear  to  have  swords  which  are  large  and 
sharp  ?  Say  this  to  others :  but  I  have  considered  about  all 
these  things ;  no  man  has  power  over  me.  I  have  been  made 
free;  I  know  his  commands,  no  man  can  now  lead  me  as  a 
slave.  I  have  a  proper  person  to  assert  my  freedom ;  I  have 
proper  judges.  (I  say)  are  you  not  the  master  of  my  body? 
What  then  is  that  to  me?  Are  you  not  the  master  of  my 
property  ?  What  then  is  that  to  me  ?  Are  you  not  the  master 
of  my  exile  or  of  my  chains  ?  Well,  from  all  these  things  and 
all  the  poor  body  itself  I  depart  at  your  bidding,  when  you 
please.  Make  trial  of  your  power,  and  you  will  know  how  far 
it  reaches. 

Whom  then  can  I  still  fear  ?  Those  who  are  over  the  bed- 
chamber? Lest  they  should  do,  what?  Shut  me  out?  If  they 
find  that  I  wish  to  enter,  let  them  shut  me  out.  Why  then  do 
you  go  to  the  doors  ?  Because  I  think  it  befits  me,  while  the 
play  (sport)  lasts,  to  join  in  it.  How  then  are  you  not  shut 
out?  Because  unless  some  one  allows  me  to  go  in,  I  do  not 
choose  to  go  in,  but  am  always  content  with  that  which  hap- 
pens ;  for  I  think  that  what  God  chooses  is  better  than  what 
I  choose.*  I  will  attach  myself  as  a  minister  and  follower  to 
him ;  I  have  the  same  movements  (pursuits)  as  he  has,  I  have 
the  same  desires ;  in  a  word,  I  have  the  same  will  (a-vvQeXoo). 
There  is  no  shutting  out  for  me,  but  for  those  who  would 
force  their  way  in.  Why  then  do  not  I  force  my  way  in  ?  Be- 
cause I  know  that  nothing  good  is  distributed  within  to  those 
who  enter.  But  when  I  hear  any  man  called  fortunate  be- 
cause he  is  honoured  by  Csesar,  I  say,  what  does  he  happen 
to  get?  A  province  (the  government  of  a  province).  Does 
he  also  obtain  an  opinion  such  as  he  ought  ?  The  office  of  a 
Prefect.  Does  he  also  obtain  the  power  of  using  his  office 
well?  Why  do  I  still  strive  to  enter  (Csesar's  chamber)  ?  A 
man  scatters  dried  figs  and  nuts :  the  children  seize  them,  and 
fight  with  one  another ;  men  do  not,  for  they  think  them  to  be 
a  small  matter.  But  if  a  man  should  throw  about  shells,  even 


DISCOURSES  345 

the  children  do  not  seize  them.  Provinces  are  distributed :  let 
children  look  to  that.  Money  is  distributed :  let  children  look 
to  that.  Praetorships,  consulships  are  distributed :  let  chil- 
dren scramble  for  them,  let  them  be  shut  out,  beaten,  kiss  the 
hands  of  the  giver,  of  the  slaves :  but  to  me  these  are  only 
dried  figs  and  nuts.  What  then?  If  you  fail  to  get  them, 
while  Caesar  is  scattering  them  about,  do  not  be  troubled :  if 
a  dried  fig  come  into  your  lap,  take  it  and  eat  it ;  for  so  far 
you  may  value  even  a  fig.  But  if  I  shall  stoop  down  and  turn 
another  over,  or  be  turned  over  by  another,  and  shall  flatter 
those  who  have  got  into  (Caesar's)  chamber,  neither  is  a 
dried  fig  worth  the  trouble,  nor  any  thing  else  of  the  things 
which  are  not  good,  which  the  philosophers  have  persuaded 
me  not  to  think  good. 

Show  me  the  swords  of  the  guards.  See  how  big  they  are, 
and  how  sharp.  What  then  do  these  big  and  sharp  swords 
do  ?  They  kill.  And  what  does  a  fever  do  ?  Nothing  else. 
And  what  else  a  (falling)  tile?  Nothing  else.  Would  you 
then  have  me  to  wonder  at  these  things  and  worship  them, 
and  go  about  as  the  slave  of  all  of  them?  I  hope  that  this 
will  not  happen :  but  when  I  have  once  learned  that  every 
thing  which  has  come  into  existence  must  also  go  out  of 
it,  that  the  universe  may  not  stand  still  nor  be  impeded,  I  no 
longer  consider  it  any  difference  whether  a  fever  shall  do  it 
or  a  tile,  or  a  soldier.  But  if  a  man  must  make  a  comparison 
between  these  things,  I  know  that  the  soldier  will  do  it  with 
less  trouble  (to  me),  and  quicker.  When  then  I  neither  fear 
any  thing  which  a  tyrant  can  do  to  me,  nor  desire  any  thing 
which  he  can  give,  why  do  I  still  look  on  with  wonder  (ad- 
miration) ?  Why  am  I  still  confounded?  Why  do  I  fear  the 
guards  ?  Why  am  I  pleased  if  he  speaks  to  me  in  a  friendly 
way,  and  receives  me,  and  why  do  I  tell  others  how  he  spoke 
to  me?  Is  he  a  Socrates,  is  he  a  Diogenes  that  his  praise 
should  be  a  proof  of  what  I  am  ?  Have  I  been  eager  to  imi- 
tate his  morals  ?  But  I  keep  up  the  play  and  go  to  him,  and 
serve  him  so  long  as  he  does  not  bid  me  to  do  any  thing 
foolish  or  unreasonable.  But  if  he  says  to  me,  "Go  and  bring 
Leon  of  Salamis,"  I  say  to  him,  "Seek  another,  for  I  am  no 
longer  playing."  (The  tyrant  says)  :  "Lead  him  away  (to 
prison)."     I  follow;    that  is  part  of  the  play.     But  your 


346  EPICTETUS 

head  will  be  taken  off. — Does  the  tyrant's  head  always  re- 
main where  it  is,  and  the  heads  of  you  who  obey  him  ? — But 
you  will  be  cast  out  unburied. — If  the  corpse  is  I,  I  shall  be 
cast  out;  but  if  I  am  different  from  the  corpse,  speak  more 
properly  according  as  the  fact  is,  and  do  not  think  of  fright- 
ening me.  These  things  are  formidable  to  children  and 
fools.  But  if  any  man  has  once  entered  a  philosopher's 
school  and  knows  not  what  he  is,  he  deserves  to  be  full  of 
fear  and  to  flatter  those  whom  afterwards  he  used  to  flatter ; 
(and)  if  he  has  not  yet  learned  that  he  is  not  flesh  nor  bones 
nor  sinews  (revpa),  but  he  is  that  which  makes  use  of  these 
parts  of  the  body  and  governs  them  and  follows  (under- 
stands) the  appearances  of  things.® 

Yes,  but  this  talk  makes  us  despise  the  laws. — And  what 
kind  of  talk  makes  men  more  obedient  to  the  laws  that  em- 
ploy such  talk  ?  And  the  things  which  are  in  the  power  of  a 
fool  are  not  law.®  And  yet  see  how  this  talk  makes  us  dis- 
posed as  we  ought  to  be  even  to  these  men  (fools)  ;  since  it 
teaches  us  to  claim  in  opposition  to  them  none  of  the  things 
in  which  they  are  able  to  surpass  us.  This  talk  teaches  us  as 
to  the  body  to  give  it  up,  as  to  property  to  give  that  up  also, 
as  to  children,  parents,  brothers,  to  retire  from  these,  to  give 
up  all ;  it  only  makes  an  exception  of  the  opinions,  which  even 
Zeus  has  willed  to  be  the  select  property  of  every  man.  What 
transgression  of  the  laws  is  there  here,  what  folly?  Where 
you  are  superior  and  stronger,  there  I  gave  way  to  you :  on 
the  other  hand,  where  I  am  superior,  do  you  yield  to  me ;  for 
I  have  studied  (cared  for)  this,  and  you  have  not.  It  is  your 
study  to  live  in  houses  with  floors  formed  of  various  stones," 
how  your  slaves  and  dependents  shall  serve  you,  how  you 
shall  wear  fine  clothing,  have  many  hunting  men,  lute  play- 
ers, and  tragic  actors.  Do  I  claim  any  of  these?  have  you 
made  any  study  of  opinions,  and  of  your  own  rational  fac- 
ulty ?  Do  you  know  of  what  parts  it  is  composed,  how  they 
are  brought  together,  how  they  are  connected,  what  powers 
it  has,  and  of  what  kind  ?  Why  then  are  you  vexed,  if  another 
who  has  made  it  his  study,  has  the  advantage  over  you  in 
these  things?  But  these  things  are  the  greatest.  And  who 
hinders  you  from  being  employed  about  these  things  and 
looking  after  them  ?  And  who  has  a  better  stock  of  books,  of 


DISCOURSES 


347 


leisure,  of  persons  to  aid  you  ?  Only  turn  your  mind  at  last 
to  these  things,  attend,  if  it  be  only  a  short  time,  to  your 
own  ruling  faculty*  {vyefiovtKov)  :  consider  what  this  is 
that  you  possess,  and  whence  it  came,  this  which  uses  all 
other  (faculties),  and  tries  them,  and  selects  and  rejects.  But 
so  long  as  you  employ  yourself  about  externals  you  will  pos- 
sess them  (externals)  as  no  man  else  does;  but  you  will  have 
this  (the  ruling  faculty)  such  as  you  choose  to  have  it,  sordid 
and  neglected. 

NOTES 

*  See  Schweig.'s  note  on  the  text.  By  the  Galilaeans  it  is  probable  that 
Epictetus  means  the  Christians,  whose  obstinacy  Antoninus  also  mentions 

(xi.  3).  Epictetus,  a  contemporary  of  St.  Paul,  knew  little  about  tlie 
Christians,  and  only  knew  some  examples  of  their  obstinate  adherence 
to  the  new  faith  and  the  fanatical  behaviour  of  some  of  the  converts. 
That  there  were  wild  fanatics  among  the  early  Christians  is  proved  on 
undoubted  authority;  and  also  that  there  always  have  been  such,  and 
now  are  such.  The  abuse  of  any  doctrines  or  religious  opinions  is  indeed 
no  argument  against  such  doctrines  or  religious  opinions;  and  it  is  a 
fact  quite  consistent  with  experience  that  the  best  things  are  liable  to  be 
perverted,  misunderstood,  and  misused. 

*  "This  agrees  with  Eph.  v.  20 :  'Give  thanks  always  for  all  things 
to  God.'  "  Mrs.  Carter.  The  words  are  the  same  in  both  except  that  the 
Apostle  has  evxapidrovrreg  and  Epictetus  has  X<^P^''^  ^'x^y- 

He  says  that  the  body  will  be  resolved  into  the  things  of  which  it  is 
composed :  none  of  them  will  perish.  The  soul,  as  he  has  said  elsewhere, 
will  go  to  him  who  gave  it  (iii.  13).  But  I  do  not  suppose  that  he 
means  that  the  soul  will  exist  as  having  a  separate  consciousness. 

*  "Nevertheless  not  as  I  will,  but  as  thou  wilt."  Matthew  xxvi.  39. 
Mrs.  Carter.  "Our  resignation  to  the  will  of  God  may  be  said  to  be 
perfect,  when  our  will  is  lost  and  resolved  up  into  his ;  when  we  rest  in 
his  will  as  our  end,  as  being  itself  most  just  and  right  and  good."  Bp. 
Butler,  Sermon  on  the  Love  of  God. 

*  Here  Epictetus  admits  that  there  is  some  power  in  man  which  uses 
the  body,  directs  and  governs  it.  He  does  not  say  what  the  power  is  nor 
what  he  supposes  it  to  be.  "Upon  the  whole  then  our  organs  of  sense 
and  our  limbs  are  certainly  instruments,  which  the  living  persons,  our- 
selves, make  use  of  to  perceive  and  move  with."  Butler's  Analogy, 
chap.  i. 

*  The  will  of  a  fool  does  not  make  law,  he  says.  Unfortunately  it  does, 
if  we  use  the  word  law  in  the  strict  sense  of  law:  for  law  is  a  general 
command  from  a  person,  an  absolute  king,  for  example,  who  has  power 
to  enforce  it  on  those  to  whom  the  command  is  addressed,  or  if  not  to 
enforce  it,  to  punish  for  disobedience  to  it.  This  strict  use  of  the  word 
"law"  is  independent  of  the  quality  of  the  command,  which  may  be  wise 
or  foolish,  good  or  bad.  But  Epictetus  does  not  use  the  word  "law"  in 
the  strict  sense. 

'  The  word  is  XtB  oar  poor  oii  which  means  what  we  name  Mosaic 
floors  or  pavements.  The  word  XtOda-rpooroy  is  used  by  John  xix.  13, 
and  rendered  in  our  version  by  "pavement." 


348  EPICTETUS 

•This  term  (rbrfyeMovtKov)  has  been  often  ufeed  by  Epictetus  (i.  26. 
IS,  etc.),  and  by  Antoninus.  Here  Epictetus  gives  a  definition  or  de- 
scription of  it:  it  is  the  faculty  by  which  we  reflect  and  judge  and  de- 
termine, a  faculty  which  no  other  animal  has,  a  faculty  which  in  many 
men  is  neglected,  and  weak  because  it  is  neglected ;  but  still  it  ought  to 
be  what  its  constitution  forms  it  to  be,  a  faculty  which  "plainly  bears 
upon  it  marks  of  authority  over  all  the  rest,  and  claims  the  absolute  di- 
rection of  them  all,  to  allow  or  forbid  their  gratification"  (Bp.  Butler, 
Preface  to  his  Sermons). 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AGAINST  THOSE  WHO  HASTILY  RUSH  INTO  THE  USE  OF  THE 
PHILOSOPHIC  DRESS 

NEVER  praise  nor  blame  a  man  because  of  the  things 
which  are  common  (to  all,  or  to  most),  and  do  not 
ascribe  to  him  any  skill  or  want  of  skill ;  and  thus 
you  will  be  free  from  rashness  and  from  malevo- 
lence. This  man  bathes  very  quickly.  Does  he  then  do 
wrong?  Certainly  not.  But  what  does  he  do?  He  bathes 
very  quickly.  Are  all  things  then  done  well  ?  By  no  means : 
but  the  acts  which  proceed  from  right  opinions  are  done 
well ;  and  those  which  proceed  from  bad  opinions  are  done 
ill.  But  do  you,  until  you  know  the  opinion  from  which  a 
man  does  each  thing,  neither  praise  nor  blame  the  act.  But 
the  opinion  is  not  easily  discovered  from  the  external  things 
(acts).  This  man  is  a  carpenter.  Why?  Because  he  uses  an 
axe.  What  then  is  this  to  the  matter?  This  man  is  a  musi- 
cian because  he  sings.  And  what  does  that  signify?  This 
man  is  a  philosopher.  Because  he  wears  a  cloak  and  long 
hair.  And  what  does  a  juggler  wear?  For  this  reason  if  a 
man  sees  any  philosopher  acting  indecently,  immediately  he 
says,  "See  what  the  philosopher  is  doing."  But  he  ought 
because  of  the  man's  indecent  behaviour  rather  to  say  that 
he  is  not  a  philosopher.  For  if  this  is  the  preconceived 
notion  ( icpoXriilni  )  of  a  philosopher  and  what  he  professes,  to 
wear  a  cloak  and  long  hair,  men  would  say  well ;  but  if  what 
he  professes  is  this  rather,  to  keep  himself  free  from  faults, 
why  do  we  not  rather,  because  he  does  not  make  good  his 
professions,  take  from  him  the  name  of  philosopher?  For  so 
we  do  in  the  case  of  all  other  arts.  When  a  man  sees  an- 
other handling  an  axe  badly,  he  does  not  say,  "What  is  the 
use  of  the  carpenter's  art?  See  how  badly  carpenters  do 
their  work."  But  he  says  just  the  contrary,  "  This  man  is 
not  a  carpenter,  for  he  uses  an  axe  badly."  In  the  same  way 
if  a  man  hears  another  singing  badly,  he  does  not  say,  "See 
how  musicians  sing."     But  rather,  "this  man  is  not  a  musi- 

349 


350  EPICTETUS 

cian."  But  it  is  in  the  matter  of  philosophy  only  that  people 
do  this.  When  they  see  a  man  acting  contrary  to  the  pro- 
fession of  a  philosopher,  they  do  not  take  away  his  title,  but 
they  assume  him  to  be  a  philosopher,  and  from  his  acts  deriv- 
ing the  fact  that  he  is  behaving  indecently  they  conclude  that 
there  is  no  use  in  philosophy. 

What  then  is  the  reason  of  this  ?  Because  we  attach  value 
to  the  notion  {xpSXrfrfnv)  of  a  carpenter,  and  to  that  of  a 
musician,  and  to  the  notion  of  other  artisans  in  like  manner, 
but  not  to  that  of  a  philosopher,  and  we  judge  from  ex- 
ternals only  that  it  is  a  thing  confused  and  ill  defined.  And 
what  other  kind  of  art  has  a  name  from  the  dress  and  the 
hair ;  and  has  not  both  theorems  and  a  material  and  an  end  ? 
What  then  is  the  material  (matter)  of  the  philosopher?  Is 
it  a  cloak  ?  No,  but  reason.  What  is  his  end  ?  Is  it  to  wear 
a  cloak  ?  No,  but  to  possess  the  reason  in  a  right  state.  Of 
what  kind  are  his  theorems  ?  Are  they  those  about  the  way 
in  which  the  beard  becomes  great  or  the  hair  long  ?  No,  but 
rather  what  Zeno  says,  to  know  the  elements  of  reason,  what 
kind  of  a  thing  each  of  them  is,  and  how  they  are  fitted  to 
one  another,  and  what  things  are  consequent  upon  them? 
Will  you  not  then  see  first  if  he  does  what  he  professes  when 
he  acts  in  an  unbecoming  manner,  and  then  blame  his  study 
(pursuit)  ?  But  now  when  you  yourself  are  acting  in  a  so- 
ber way,  you  say  in  consequence  of  what  he  seems  to  you  to 
be  doing  wrong,  "Look  at  the  philosopher,"  as  if  it  were 
proper  to  call  by  the  name  of  philosopher  one  who  does 
these  things;  and  further,  "This  is  the  conduct  of  a  phi- 
losopher." But  you  do  not  say,  "Look  at  the  carpenter," 
when  you  know  that  a  carpenter  is  an  adulterer  or  you  see 
him  to  be  a  glutton;  nor  do  you  say,  "See  the  musician." 
Thus  to  a  certain  degree  even  you  perceive  (understand)  the 
profession  of  a  philosopher,  but  you  fall  away  from  the 
notion,  and  you  are  confused  through  want  of  care. 

But  even  the  philosophers  themselves  as  they  are  called 
pursue  the  thing  (philosophy)  by  beginning  with  things 
which  are  common  to  them  and  others :  as  soon  as  they  have 
.  assumed  a  cloak  and  grown  a  beard,  they  say,  "I  am  a  phi- 
losopher."^ But  no  man  will  say,  "I  am  a  musician,"  if  he 
has  bought  a  plectrum  (fiddlestick)  and  a  lute :  nor  will  he 


DISCOURSES 


351 


say,  "I  am  a  smith,"  if  he  has  put.on'a  cap  and  apron.  But 
the  dress  is  fitted  to  the  art ;  and  they  take  their  name  from 
the  art,  and  not  from  the  dress.  For  this  reason  Euphrates 
used  to  say  well,  "A  long  time  I  strove  to  be  a  philosopher 
without  people  knowing  it;  and  this,"  he  said,  "was  useful 
to  me:  for  first  I  knew  that  when  J.  did  any  thing  well,  I 
did  not  do  it  for  the  sake  of  the  spectators,  but  for  the  sake 
of  myself:  I  ate  well  for  the  sake  of  myself:  I  had  my 
countenance  well  composed  and  my  walk :  all  for  myself 
and  for  God.  Then,  as  I  struggled  alone,  so  I  alone  also 
was  in  danger:  in  no  respect  through  me,  if  I  did  any- 
thing base  or  unbecoming,  was  philosophy  endangered: 
nor  did  I  injure  the  many  by  doing  any  thing  wrong  as  a 
philosopher.  P'or  this  reason  those  who  did  not  know  my 
purpose  used  to  wonder  how  it  was  that  while  I  conversed 
and  lived  altogether  with  all  philosophers,  I  was  not  a 
philosopher  myself.  And  what  was  the  harm  for  me  to 
be  known  to  be  a  philosopher  by  my  acts  and  not  by  out- 
ward marks  ?^  See  how  I  eat,  how  I  drink,  how  I  sleep, 
how  I  bear  and  forbear,  how  I  co-operate,  how  I  employ  de- 
sire, how  I  employ  aversion  (turning  from  things),  how  I 
maintain  the  relations  (to  things)  those  which  are  natural 
or  those  which  are  acquired,  how  free  from  confusion,  how 
free  from  hindrance.  Judge  of  me  from  this,  if  you  can.  But 
if  you  are  so  deaf  and  blind  that  you  can  not  conceive  even 
Hephaestus  to  be  a  good  smith,  unless  you  see  the  cap  on  his 
head,  what  is  the  harm  in  not  being  recognized  by  so  foolish 
a  judge?" 

So  Socrates  was  not  known  to  be  a  philosopher  by  most 
persons ;  and  they  used  to  come  to  him  and  ask  to  be  intro- 
duced to  philosophers.  Was  he  vexed  then  as  we  are,  and  did 
he  say,  "And  do  you  not  think  that  I  am  a  philosopher?" 
No,  but  he  would  take  them  and  introduce  them,  being  satis- 
fied with  one  thing,  with  being  a  philosopher,  and  being 
pleased  also  with  not  being  thought  to  be  a  philosopher,  he 
was  not  annoyed:  for  he  thought  of  his  own  occupation. 
What  is  the  work  of  an  honourable  and  good  man?  To 
have  many  pupils?  By  no  means.  They  will  look  to  this 
matter  who  are  earnest  about  it.  But  was  it  his  business  to 
examine   carefully    difficult   theorems?     Others    will    look 


352,  EPICTETUS 

after'"  these  matters  also.  In  what  then  was  he,*  and 
who  was  he  and  whom  did  he  wish  to  be?  He  was 
in  that  (employed  in  that)  wherein  there  was  hurt  (dam- 
age) and  advantage.  "If  any  man  can  damage  me,"  he 
says,  "I  am  doing  nothing:  if  I  am  waiting  for  another 
man  to  do  me  good,  I  am  nothing.  If  I  wish  for  any  thing, 
and  it  does  not  happen,  I  am  unfortunate."  To  such  a 
contest  he  invited  every  man,  and  I  do  not  think  that  he 
would  have  declined  the  contest  with  any  one.  What  do  you 
suppose  ?  was  it  by  proclaiming  and  saying,  "  I  am  such  a 
man  ?"  Far  from  it,  but  by  being  such  a  man.  For  further, 
this  is  the  character  of  a  fool  and  a  boaster  to  say,  "I  am 
free  from  passions  and  disturbance :  do  not  be  ignorant,  my 
friends,  that  while  you  are  uneasy  and  disturbed  about  things 
of  no  value,  I  alone  am  free  from  all  perturbation."  So  is  it 
not  enough  for  you  to  feel  no  pain,  unless  you  make  this 
proclamation:  "Come  together  all  who  are  suffering  gout, 
pains  in  the  head,  fever,  ye  who  are  lame,  blind,  and  observe 
that  I  am  sound  (free)  from  every  ailment."  This  is  empty 
and  disagreeable  to  hear,  unless  like  yEsculapius  you  are  able 
to  show  immediately  by  what  kind  of  treatment  they  also 
shall  be  immediately  free  from  disease,  and  unless  you  show 
your  own  health  as  an  example. 

For  such  is  the  Cynic  who  is  honoured  with  the  sceptre 
and  the  diadem  by  Zeus,  and  says,  "That  you  may  see,  O 
men,  that  you  seek  happiness  and  tranquillity  not  where  it  is, 
but  where  it  is  not,  behold  I  am  sent  to  you  by  God  as  an  ex- 
ample, I  who  have  neither  property  nor  house,  nor  wife  nor 
children,  not  even  a  bed,  nor  coat  nor  household  utensil ;  and 
see  how  healthy  I  am :  try  me,  and  if  you  see  that  I  am  free 
from  perturbations,  hear  the  remedies  and  how  I  have  been 
cured  (treated)."  This  is  both  philanthropic  and  noble. 
But  see  whose  work  it  is,  the  work  of  Zeus,  or  of  him  whom 
he  may  judge  worthy  of  this  service,  that  he  may  never  ex- 
hibit any  thing  to  the  many,  by  which  he  shall  make  of  no 
effect  his  own  testimony,  whereby  he  gives  testimony  to  vir- 
tue, and  bears  evidence  against  external  things: 

"His  beauteous  face  pales  not,  nor  from  his  cheeks 
He  wipes  a  tear."* 

And  not  this  only,  but  he  neither  desires  nor  seeks  any 


DISCOURSES 


353 


thing,  nor  man,  nor  place,  nor  amusement,  as  children  seek 
the  vintage  or  holidays;  always  fortified  by  modesty  as 
others  are  fortified  by  walls  and  doors  and  doorkeepers. 

But  now  (these  men)  being  only  moved  to  philosophy, 
as  those  who  have  a  bad  stomach  are  moved  to  some  kinds 
of  food  which  they  soon  loathe,  straightway  (rush)  towards 
the  sceptre  and  to  the  royal  power.  They  let  the  hair  grow, 
they  assume  the  cloak,  they  show  the  shoulder  bare,  they 
quarrel  with  those  whom  they  meet ;  and  if  they  see  a  man  in 
a  thick  winter  coat,  they  quarrel  with  him.  Man,  first  ex- 
ercise yourself  in  winter  weather:  see  your  movements  (in- 
clinations) that  they  are  not  those  of  a  man  with  a  bad 
stomach  or  those  of  a  longing  woman.  First  strive  that  it  be 
not  known  what  you  are :  be  a  philosopher  to  yourself  (or, 
philosophize  to  yourself)  a  short  time.  Fruit  grows  thus: 
the  seed  must  be  buried  for  some  time,  hid,  grow  slowly  in 
order  that  it  may  come  to  perfection.  But  if  it  produces  the 
ear  before  the  jointed  stem,  it  is  imperfect,  a  produce  of  the 
garden  of  Adonis.^  Such  a  poor  plant  are  you  also :  you 
have  blossomed  too  soon ;  the  cold  weather  will  scorch  you 
up.  See  what  the  husbandmen  say  about  seeds  when  there 
is  warm  weather  too  early.  They  are  afraid  lest  the  seeds 
should  be  too  luxuriant,  and  then  a  single  frost  should  lay 
hold  of  them  and  show  that  they  are  too  forward.  Do  you 
also  consider,  my  man :  you  have  shot  out  too  soon,  you 
have  hurried  towards  a  little  fame  before  the  proper  season : 
you  think  that  you  are  something,  a  fool  among  fools :  you 
will  be  caught  by  the  frost,  and  rather  you  have  been  frost- 
bitten in  the  root  below,  but  your  upper  parts  still  blossom 
a  little,  and  for  this  reason  you  think  that  you  are  still  alive 
and  flourishing.  Allow  us  to  ripen  in  the  natural  way: 
why  do  you  bare  (expose)  us?  why  do  you  force  us?  we 
are  not  yet  able  to  bear  the  air.  Let  the  root  grow,  then 
acquire  the  first  joint,  then  the  second,  and  then  the  third; 
in  this  way  then  the  fruit  will  naturally  force  itself  out,  even 
if  I  do  not  choose.  For  who  that  is  pregnant  and  filled  with 
such  great  principles  does  not  also  perceive  his  own  powers 
and  move  towards  the  corresponding  acts?  A  bull  is  not 
ignorant  of  his  own  nature  and  his  powers,  when  a  wild 
beast  shows  itself,  nor  does  he  wait  for  one  to  urge  him  on ; 
nor  a  dog  when  he  sees  a  wild  animal.  But  if  I  have  the 
23 


354  EPICTETUS 

powers  of  a  good  man,  shall  I  wait  for  you  to  prepare  me  for 
my  own  (proper)  acts?  At  present  I  have  them  not,  t)e- 
lieve  me.  Why  then  do  you  wish  me  to  be  withered  up 
before  the  time,  as  you  have  been  withered  up? 

NOTES  ^ 

'  Compare  Horace,  Ep.  i.  19,  12,  etc. 

"Quid,  si  quis  vultu  torvo  ferus  et  pede  nudo 
Exiguaeque  togse  simulet  textore  Catonem, 
Virtutemne  repraesentet  moresque  Catonis?" 

*  "Yea  a  man  may  say,  Thou  hast  faith,  and  I  have  wotks :  shew  me 
thy  faith  without  thy  works,  and  I  will  shew  thee  my  faith  by  my  works," 
Epistle  of  James,  ii.  18.  So  a  moral  philosopher  may  say,  I  show  my  prin- 
ciples, not  by  what  I  profess,  but  by  that  which  I  do. 

*  "In  what  then  was  he"  seems  to  mean  in  what  did  he  employ  him- 
self? 

*  Odyssey,  xi.  528. 

"  "The  gardens  of  Adonis"  are  things  g:rowing  in  earthen  vessels,  car- 
ried about  for  show  only,  not  for  use.  "The  gardens  of  Adonis"  is  a 
proverbial  expression  applied  to  things  of  no  value,  to  plants,  for  in- 
stance, which  last  only  a  short  time,  have  no  roots,  and  soon  wither.  Such 
things,  we  may  suppose,  were  exhibited  at  the  festivals  of  Adonis. 
Schweighauser's  note. 


'      CHAPTER  IX 

TO  A  PERSON  WHO  HAD  BEEN  CHANGED  TO  A  CHARACTER  OF 

SHAMELESSNESS^ 

WHEN  you  see  another  man  in  the  possession  of 
power  (magistracy),  set  against  this  the  fact  that 
you  have  not  the  want  (desire)  of  power;  when 
you  see  another  rich,  see  what  you  possess  in  place 
of  riches :  for  if  you  possess  nothing  in  place  of  them,  you 
are  miserable ;  but  if  you  have  not  the  want  of  riches,  know 
that  you  possess  more  than  this  man  possesses  and  what  is 
worth  much  more.  Another  man  possesses  a  handsome 
woman  (wife)  :  you  have  the  satisfaction  of  not  desiring  a 
handsome  wife.  Do  these  things  appear  to  you  to  be  small  ? 
And  how  much  would  these  persons  give,  these  very  men 
who  are  rich,  and  in  possession  of  power,  and  live  with  hand- 
some women,  to  be  able  to  despise  riches,  and  power  and 
these  very  women  whom  they  love  and  enjoy?  Do  you  not 
know  then  what  is  the  thirst  of  a  man  who  has  a  fever  ?  He 
possesses  that  which  is  in  no  degree  like  the  thirst  of  a  man 
who  is  in  health :  for  the  man  who  is  in  health  ceases  to  be 
thirsty  after  he  has  drunk ;  but  the  sick  man  being  pleased  for 
a  short  time  has  a  nausea,  he  converts  the  drink  into  bile, 
vomits,  is  griped,  and  more  thirsty.  It  is  such  a  thing  to  have 
desire  of  riches  and  to  possess  riches,  desire  of  power  and  to 
possess  power,  desire  of  a  beautiful  woman  and  to  sleep  with 
her :  to  this  is  added  jealousy,  fear  of  being  deprived  of  the 
thing  which  you  love,  indecent  words,  indecent  thoughts, 
unseemly  acts. 

And  what  do  I  lose?  you  will  say.  My  man,  you  were 
modest,  and  you  are  so  no  longer.  Have  you  lost  nothing? 
In  place  of  Chrysippus  and  Zeno  you  read  Aristides  and 
Evenus;^  have  you  lost  nothing?  In  place  of  Socrates  and 
Diogenes,  you  admire  him  who  is  able  to  corrupt  and  seduce 
most  women.  You  wish  to  appear  handsome  and  try  to  make 
yourself  so,  though  you  are  not.  You  like  to  display  splendid 
clothes  that  you  may  attract  women ;  and  if  you  find  any  fine 

355 


356  EPICTETUS 

oil  (for  the  hair),  you  imagine  that  you  are  happy.  But 
formerly  you  did  not  think  of  any  such  thing,  but  only  where 
there  should  be  decent  talk,  a  worthy  man,  and  a  generous 
conception.  Therefore  you  slept  like  a  man,  walked  forth  like 
a  man,  wore  a  manly  dress,  and  used  to  talk  in  a  way  becom- 
ing a  good  man ;  then  do  you  say  to  me,  I  have  lost  nothing  ? 
So  do  men  lose  nothing  more  than  coin ?  Is  not  modesty  lost? 
Is  not  decent  behaviour  lost  ?  is  it  that  he  who  has  lost  these 
things  has  sustained  no  loss  ?  Perhaps  you  think  that  not  one 
of  these  things  is  a  loss.  But  there  was  a  time  when  you 
reckoned  this  the  only  loss  and  damage,  and  you  were  anx- 
ious that  no  man  should  disturb  you  from  these  (good) 
words  and  actions. 

Observe,  you  are  disturbed  from  these  good  words  and 
actions  by  nobody,  but  by  yourself.  Fight  with  yourself, 
restore  yourself  to  decency,  to  modesty,  to  liberty.  If  any 
man  ever  told  you  this  about  me,  that  a  person  forces  me  to 
be  an  adulterer,  to  wear  such  a  dress  as  yours,  to  perfume 
myself  with  oils,  would  you  not  have  gone  and  with 
your  own  hand  have  killed  the  man  who  thus  calumniated 
me  ?  Now  will  you  not  help  yourself  ?  and  how  much  easier 
is  this  help?  There  is  no  need  to  kill  any  man,  nor  to  put 
him  in  chains,  nor  to  treat  him  with  contumely,  nor  to  enter 
the  Forum  (go  to  the  courts  of  law),  but  it  is  only  necessary 
for  you  to  speak  to  yourself  who  will  be  most  easily  per- 
suaded, with  whom  no  man  has  more  power  of  persuasion 
than  yourself.  First  of  all,  condemn  what  you  are  doing,  and 
then  when  you  have  condemned  it,  do  not  despair  of  yourself, 
and  be  not  in  the  condition  of  those  men  of  mean  spirit,  who, 
when  they  have  once  given  in,  surrender  themselves  com- 
pletely and  are  carried  away  as  if  by  a  torrent.  But  see  what 
the  trainers  of  boys  do.  Has  the  boy  fallen  ?  Rise,  they  say, 
wrestle  again  till  you  are  made  strong.  Do  you  also  do 
something  of  the  same  kind  :  for  be  well  assured  that  nothing 
is  more  tractable  than  the  human  soul.  You  must  exercise 
the  will,^  and  the  thing  is  done,  it  is  set  right:  as  on  the 
other  hand,  only  fall  a  nodding  (be  careless),  and  the  thing 
is  lost :  for  from  within  comes  ruin  and  from  within  comes 
help.  Then  (you  say)  what  good  do  I  gain?  And  what 
greater  good  do  you  seek  than  this  ?^  From  a  shameless  maa 


DISCOURSES  357 

you  will  become  a  modest  man,  from  a  disorderly  you  will 
become  an  orderly  man,  from  a  faithless  you  will  become  a 
faithful  man,  from  a  man  of  unbridled  habits  a  sober  man. 
If  you  seek  any  thing  more  than  this,  go  on  doing  what  you 
are  doing :  not  even  a  God  can  now  help  you. 

NOTES 

*  "They,  who  are  desirous  of  taking  refuge  in  Heathenism  from  the 
strictness  of  the  Christian  morality,  will  find  no  great  consolation  in  read- 
ing this  chapter  of  Epictetus."     Mrs.  Carter. 

Aristides  was  a  Greek,  but  his  period  is  not  known.  He  was  the  au- 
thor of  a  work  named  Milesiaca  or  Milesian  stories.  All  that  we  know 
of  the  work  is  that  it  was  of  a  loose  description,  amatory  and  licentious. 
It  was  translated  into  Latin  by  L.  Cornelius  Sisenna,  a  contemporary  of 
the  Dictator  Sulla;  and  it  is  mentioned  by  Plutarch  (Life  of  Crassus,  c. 
32),  and  several  times  by  Ovid  (Tristia  ii.  413  etc.).  Evenus  was  per- 
haps a  poet.  We  know  nothing  of  this  Evenus,  but  we  may  conjecture 
from  being  here  associated  with  Aristides  what  his  character  was. 

*  The  power  of  the  will  is  a  fundamental  principle  with  Epictetus.  The 
will  is  strong  in  some,  but  very  feeble  in  others ;  and  sometimes,  as  expe- 
rience seems  to  show,  it  is  incapable  of  resisting  the  power  of  old  habits 

*  Virtue  is  its  own  reward,  said  the  Stoics.  This  is  the  meaning  of 
Epictetus,  and  it  is  consistent  with  his  principles  that  a  man  should  live 
conformably  to  his  nature,  and  so  he  will  have  all  the  happiness  of  which 
human  nature  is  capable.  Mrs.  Carter  has  a  note  here,  which  I  do  not 
copy,  and  I  hardly  understand.  It  seems  to  refer  to  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  a  man  being  rewarded  in  a  future  life  according  to  his  works: 
but  we  have  no  evidence  that  Epictetus  believed  in  a  future  life,  and  he 
therefore  could  not  go  further  than  to  maintain  that  virtuous  behaviour 
is  the  best  thing  in  this  .short  life,  and  will  give  a  man  the  happiness 
which  he  can  obtain  in  no  other  way. 


CHAPTER  X 

WHAT  THINGS  WE  OUGHT  TO  DESPISE,  AND  WHAT  THINGS  WE 
OUGHT  TO  VALUE 

THE  difficulties  of  all  men  are  about  external  things, 
their  helplessness  is  about  externals.  What  shall  I 
do,  how  will  it  be,  how  will  it  turn  out,  will  this  hap- 
pen, will  that  ?  All  these  are  the  words  of  those  who 
are  turning  themselves  to  things  which  are  not  within  the 
power  of  the  will.  For  who  says,  "How  shall  I  not  assent  to 
that  which  is  false?  how  shall  I  not  turn  away  from  the 
truth  ?"  If  a  man  be  of  such  a  good  disposition  as  to  be  anx- 
ious about  these  things,  I  will  remind  him  of  this,  Why  are 
you  anxious  ?  The  thing  is  in  your  own  power :  be  assured : 
do  not  be  precipitate  in  assenting  before  you  apply  the  nat- 
ural rule.  On  the  other  side,  if  a  man  is  anxious  (uneasy) 
about  desire,  lest  it  fail  in  its  purpose  and  miss  its  end,  and 
with  respect  to  the  avoidance  of  things,  lest  he  should  fall 
into  that  which  he  would  avoid,  I  will  first  kiss  (love)  him, 
because  he  throws  away  the  things  about  which  others  are  in 
a  flutter  (others  desire)  and  their  fears,  and  employs  his 
thoughts  about  his  own  affairs  and  his  own  condition.  Then 
I  shall  say  to  him,  if  you  do  not  choose  to  desire  that  which 
you  will  fail  to  obtain  nor  to  attempt  to  avoid  that  into  which 
you  will  fall,  desire  nothing  which  belongs  to  (which  is  in 
the  power  of)  others,  nor  try  to  avoid  any  of  the  things 
which  are  not  in  your  power.  If  you  do  not  observe  this  rule, 
you  must  of  necessity  fail  in  your  desires  and  fall  into  that 
which  you  would  avoid.  What  is  the  difficulty  here?  where 
is  there  room  for  the  words.  How  will  it  be  ?  and  How  will 
it  turn  out  ?  and  will  this  happen  or  that  ? 

Now  is  not  that  which  will  happen  independent  of  the 
will  ?  Yes.  And  the  nature  of  good  and  of  evil  is  it  not  in  the 
things  which  are  within  the  power  of  the  will  ?  Yes.  Is  it  in 
your  power  then  to  treat  according  to  nature  every  thing 
which  happens  ?  Can  any  person  hinder  you  ?  No  man.  No 
longer  then  say  to  me,  How  will  it  be?  For  however  it  may 

358 


DISCOURSES  359 

be,  you  will  dispose  of  it  well/  and  the  result  to  you  will  be 
a  fortunate  one.  What  would  Hercules  have  been  if  he  said, 
*'How  shall  a  great  lion  not  appear  to  me,  or  a  great  boar,  or 
savage  men  ?"  And  what  do  you  care  for  that  ?  If  a  great 
boar  appear,  you  will  fight  a  greater  fight :  if  bad  men  appear, 
you  will  relieve  the  earth  of  the  bad.  Suppose  then  that  I  lose 
my  life  in  this  way.  You  will  die  a  good  man,  doing  a  noble 
act.  For  since  we  must  certainly  die,  of  necessity  a  man  must 
be  found  doing  something  either  following  the  employment 
of  a  husbandman,  or  digging,  or  trading,  or  serving  in  a 
consulship,  or  suffering  from  indigestion  or  from  diarrhoea. 
What  then  do  you  wish  to  be  doing  when  you  are  found  by 
death  ?  I  for  my  part  would  wish  to  be  found  doing  some- 
thing which  belongs  to  a  man,  beneficent,  suitable  to  the  gen- 
eral interest,  noble.  But  if  I  can  not  be  found  doing  things 
so  great,  I  would  be  found  doing  at  least  that  which  I  can  not 
be  hindered  from  doing,  that  which  is  permitted  me  to  do, 
correcting  myself ,  cultivating  the  faculty  which  makes  use  of 
appearances,  labouring  at  freedom  from  the  affects  (labour- 
ing at  tranquillity  of  mind),  rendering  to  the  relations  of  life 
their  due;  if  I  succeed  so  far,  also  (I  would  be  found)  touch- 
ing on  (advancing  to)  the  third  topic  (or  head),  safety  in 
the  forming  judgments  about  things.^  If  death  surprises  me 
when  I  am  busy  about  these  things,  it  is  enough  for  me  if  I 
can  stretch  out  my  hands  to  God  and  say :  "The  means  which 
I  have  received  from  thee  for  seeing  thy  administration  (of 
the  world)  and  following  it,  I  have  not  neglected :  I  have  not 
dishonoured  thee  by  my  acts :  see  how  I  have  used  my  per- 
ceptions, see  how  I  have  used  my  preconceptions :  have  I  ever 
blamed  thee?  have  I  been  discontented  with  any  thing  that 
happens,  or  wished  it  to  be  otherwise?  have  I  wished  to 
transgress  the  (established)  relations  (of  things)  ?  That 
thou  hast  given  me  life,  I  thank  thee  for  what  thou  hast 
given :  so  long  as  I  have  used  the  things  which  are  thine  I 
am  content;  take  them  back  and  place  them  wherever  thou 
mayest  choose ;  for  thine  were  all  things,  thou  gavest  them  to 
me."^  Is  it  not  enough  to  depart  in  this  state  of  mind,  and 
what  life  is  better  and  more  becoming  than  that  of  a  man 
who  is  in  this  state  of  mind?  and  what  end  is  more  happy?* 
But  that  this  may  be  done  (that  such  a  declaration  may  be 


360  EPICTETUS 

made),  a  man  must  receive  (bear)  no  small  things,  nor  are 
the  things  small  which  he  must  lose  (go  without).  You  can 
not  both  wish  to  be  a  consul  and  to  have  these  things  (the 
power  of  making  such  a  dying  speech),  and  to  be  eager  to 
have  lands,  and  these  things  also ;  and  to  be  solicitous  about 
slaves  and  about  yourself.  But  if  you  wish  for  any  thing 
which  belongs  to  another,  that  which  is  your  own  is  lost. 
This  is  the  nature  of  the  thing :  nothing  is  given  or  had  for 
nothing.**  And  where  is  the  wonder?  If  you  wish  to  be  a 
consul,  you  must  keep  awake,  run  about,  kiss  hands,  waste 
yourself  with  exhaustion  at  other  men's  doors,  say  and  do 
many  things  unworthy  of  a  free  man,  send  gifts  to  many, 
daily  presents  to  some.  And  what  is  the  thing  that  is  got? 
Twelve  bundles  of  rods  (the  consular  fasces),  to  sit  three  or 
four  times  on  the  tribunal,  to  exhibit  the  games  in  the  Circus 
and  to  give  suppers  in  small  baskets.®  Or,  if  you  do  not 
agree  about  this,  let  some  one  show  me  what  there  is  besides 
these  things.  In  order  then  to  secure  freedom  from  pas- 
sions (ccTtoQe^ai),  tranquillity,  to  sleep  well  when  you  do  sleep, 
to  be  really  awake  when  you  are  awake,  to  fear  nothing,  to 
be  anxious  about  nothing,  will  you  spend  nothing  and  give 
no  labour  ?  But  if  any  thing  belonging  to  you  be  lost  while 
you  are  thus  busied,  or  be  wasted  badly,  or  another  obtains 
what  you  ought  to  have  obtained,  will  you  immediately  be 
vexed  at  what  has  happened  ?  Will  you  not  take  into  the  ac- 
count on  the  other  side  what  you  receive  and  for  what,  how 
much  for  how  much?  Do  you  expect  to  have  for  nothing 
things  so  great?  And  how  can  you?  One  work  (thing)  has 
no  community  with  another.  You  can  not  have  both  exter- 
nal things  after  bestowing  care  on  them  and  your  own  ruling 
faculty :  "^  but  if  you  would  have  those,  give  up  this.  If  you 
do  not,  you  will  have  neither  this  nor  that,  while  you  are 
drawn  in  different  ways  to  both.  ®  The  oil  will  be  spilled,  the 
household  vessels  will  perish:  (that  may  be),  but  I  shall  be 
free  from  passions  (tranquil). — There  will  be  a  fire  when  I 
am  not  present,  and  the  books  will  be  destroyed :  but  I  shall 
treat  appearances  according  to  nature. — Well;  but  I  shall 
have  nothing  to  eat.  If  I  am  so  unlucky,  death  is  a  harbour; 
and  death  is  the  harbour  for  all;  this  is  the  place  of  refuge; 
and  for  this  reason  not  one  of  the  things  in  life  is  difficult;  as 


DISCOURSES  361 

soon  as  you  choose,  you  are  out  of  the  house,  and  are  smoked 
no  more.®  Why  then  are  you  anxious,  why  do  you  lose  your 
sleep,  why  do  you  not  straightway,  after  considering  wherein 
your  good  is  and  your  evil,  say,  "Both  of  them  are  in  my 
power?  Neither  can  any  man  deprive  me  of  the  good,  nor 
involve  me  in  the  bad  against  my  will.  Why  do  I  not  throw 
myself  down  and  snore  ?  for  all  that  I  have  is  safe.  As  to  the 
things  which  belong  to  others,  he  will  look  to  them  who  gets 
them,  as  they  may  be  given  by  him  who  has  the  power.  Who 
am  I  who  wish  to  have  them  in  this  way  or  in  that?  is  a 
power  of  selecting  them  given  to  me  ?  has  any  person  made 
me  the  dispenser  of  them  ?  Those  things  are  enough  for  me 
over  which  I  have  power :  I  ought  to  manage  them  as  well 
as  I  can :  and  all  the  rest,  as  the  master  of  them  (God)  may 
choose." 

When  a  man  has  these  things  before  his  eyes,  does  he  keep 
awake  and  turn  hither  and  thither  ?  What  would  he  have,  or 
what  does  he  regret,  Patroclus  or  Antilochus  or  Menelaus?^" 
For  when  did  he  suppose  that  any  of  his  friends  was  im- 
mortal, and  when  had  he  not  before  his  eyes  that  on  the  mor- 
row or  the  day  after  he  or  his  friend  must  die  ?  Yes,  he  says, 
but  I  thought  that  he  would  survive  me  and  bring  up  my  son. 
— You  were  a  fool  for  that  reason,  and  you  were  thinking  of 
what  was  uncertain.  Why  then  do  you  not  blame  yourself, 
and  sit  crying  like  girls  ? — But  he  used  to  set  my  food  before 
me. — Because  he  was  alive,  you  fool,  but  now  he  can  not; 
but  Automedon*^  will  set  it  before  you,  and  if  Automedon 
also  dies,  you  will  find  another.  But  if  the  pot,  in  which 
your  meat  was  cooked,  should  be  broken,  must  you  die  of 
hunger,  because  you  have  not  the  pot  which  you  are  accus- 
tomed to  ?     Do  you  not  send  and  buy  a  new  pot  ?     He  says : 

"No  greater  ill  than  this  could  fall  on  me."" 

Why  is  this  your  ill?  Do  you  then  instead  of  removing  it 
blame  your  mother  (Thetis)  for  not  foretelling  it  to  you  that 
you  might  continue  grieving, from  that  time?  What  do  you 
think?  do  you  not  suppose  that  Homer  wrote  this  that  we 
may  learn  that  those  of  noblest  birth,  the  strongest  and  the 
richest,  the  most  handsome,  when  they  have  not  the  opinions 


362  EPICTETUS 

which  they  ought  to  have,  are  not  prevented  from  being  most 
wretched  and  unfortunate? 


'  See  a  passage  in  Plutarch  on  Tranquillity  from  Euripides,  the  great 

storehouse  of  noble  thoughts,  from  which  ancient  writers  drew  much 
good  matter ;  and  perhaps  it  was  one  of  the  reasons  why  so  many  of  his 
plays  and  fragments  have  been  preserved. 

"  We  must  not  quarrel  with  the  things  that  are, 
For  they  care  not  for  us :  but  he  who  feels  them 
If  he  disposes  well  of  things,  fares  well." 

*  See  iii.  c.  2. 

*  "Thine  they  were,  and  thou  gavest  them  to  me."  John  xviL  6. — 
Mrs.  Carter. 

*  "I  wish  it  were  possible  to  palliate  the  ostentation  of  this  passage,  by 
applying  it  to  the  ideal  perfect  character ;  but  it  is  in  a  general  way  that 
Epictetus  hath  proposed  such  a  dying  speech,  as  can  not  without  shocking 
arrogance  be  uttered  by  any  one  born  to  die.  Unmixed  as  it  is  with  any 
acknowledgment  of  faults  or  imperfections,  at  present,  or  with  any  sense 
of  guilt  on  account  of  the  past,  it  must  give  every  sober  reader  a  very 
disadvantageous  opinion  of  some  principles  of  the  philosophy  on  which 
it  is  founded,  as  contradictory  to  the  voice  of  conscience,  and  formed  on 
absolute  ignorance  or  neglect  of  the  condition  and  circumstances  of  such 
a  creature  as  man." — Mrs.  Carter. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Epictetus  does  refer  to  the  "ideal  perfect 
character" :  but  others  may  not  understand  him  in  this  way.  When 
Mrs.  Carter  says  "but  it  is  in  a  general .  .  .  dying  speech,"  she  can  hardly 
suppose,  as  her  words  seem  to  mean,  that  Epictetus  proposed  such  a 
dying  speech,  for  every  man  or  even  for  many  men,  for  he  knew  and  has 
told  us  how  bad  many  men  are,  and  how  few  are  good  according  to  his 
measure  and  rule :  in  fact  his  meaning  is  plainly  expressed.  The  dying 
speech  may  even  be  stronger  in  the  sense  in  which  Mrs.  Carter  under- 
stands it,  in  my  translation,  where  I  have  rendered  one  passage  in  the 
text  by  the  words  "I  have  not  dishonoured  thee  by  my  acts."  which  she 
translates,  "as  far  as  in  me  lay,  I  have  not  dishonoured  thee ;"  which  ap- 
parently means,  "as  far  as  I  could,  I  have  not  dishonoured  thee."  The 
Latin  translation  "quantum  in  me  fuit,"  seems  rather  ambiguous  to  me. 

There  is  a  general  confession  of  sins  in  the  prayer  book  of  the  Church 
of  England,  part  of  which  Epictetus  would  not  have  rejected.  I  think. 
Of  course  the  words  which  form  the  peculiar  Christian  character  of  the 
confession  would  have  been  unintelligible  to  him.  It  is  a  confession 
which  all  persons  of  all  conditions  are  supposed  to  make.  If  all  persons 
made  the  confession  with  sincerity,  it  ought  to  produce  a  corresponding 
behaviour  and  make  men  more  ready  to  be  kind  to  one  another,  for  all 
who  use  it  confess  that  they  fail  in  their  duty,  and  it  ought  to  lower 
pride  and  banish  arrogance  from  the  behaviour  of  those  who  in  wealth 
and  condition  are  elevated  above  the  multitude.  But  I  have  seen  it 
somewhere  said,  I  can  net  remember  where,  but  said  in  no  friendly  spirit 
to  Christian  prayer,  that  some  men  both  priests  and  laymen  prostrate 
themselves  in  humility  before  God  and  indemnify  themselves  by  arro- 
gance to  man. 

*  See  iv.  2,  2. 


DISCOURSES  363 

*  These  were  what  the  Romans  named  "sportulae,"  in  which  the  rich 
used  to  give  some  eatables  to  poor  dependents  who  called  to  pay  their 
respects  to  the  great  at  an  early  hour. 

"Nunc  sportula  primo 
Limine  parva  sedet  turbae  rapienda  togatae." 

Juvenal,  Sat.  i.  95. 

'    ^  "You  can  not  serve  God  and  Mammon."     Matthew  vi.  24.     Mrs. 
Carter. 

*  See  iv.  2,  5. 

'  Compare  i.  25,  18,  and  i.  9,  20. 

"  Epictetus  refers  to  the  passage  in  the  Iliad  xxiv.  5,  where  Achilles 
is  lamenting  the  death  of  Patroclus  and  can  not  sleep. 

"  "This  is  a  wretched  idea  of  friendship ;  but  a  necessary  consequence 
of  the  Stoic  system.  What  a  fine  contrast  to  this  gloomy  consolation 
are  the  noble  sentiments  of  an  Apostle?  Value  your  deceased  friend, 
says  Epictetus,  as  a  broken  pipkin ;  forget  him,  as  a  thing  worthless, 
lost  and  destroyed.  St.  Paul,  on  the  contrary,  comforts  the  mourning 
survivors;  bidding  them  not  sorrow,  as  those  who  have  no  hope:  but 
remember  that  the  death  of  good  persons  is  only  a  sleep;  from  which 
they  will  soon  arise  to  a  happy  immortality."     Mrs.  Carter. 

Epictetus  does  not  say,  "value  your  deceased  friend  as  a  broken  pipkin." 
Achilles  laments  that  he  has  lost  the  services  of  his  friend  at  table,  a 
vulgar  kind  of  complaint ;  he  is  thinking  of  his  own  loss,  instead  of  his 
friend.  The  answer  is  such  a  loss  as  he  laments  is  easily  repaired ;  the 
loss  of  such  a  friend  is  as  easily  repaired  as  the  loss  of  a  cooking  vessel. 
Mrs.  Carter  in  her  zeal  to  contrast  the  teaching  of  the  Apostle  with  that 
of  Epictetus  seems  to  forget  for  the  time  that  Epictetus,  so  far  as  we 
know,  did  not  accept  or  did  not  teach  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life.  As 
to  what  he  thought  of  friendship,  if  it  was  a  real  friendship,  such  as  we 
can  conceive,  I  am  sure  that  he  did  not  think  of  it,  as  Mrs.  Carter  says 
that  he  did;  for  true  friendship  implies  many  of  the  virtues  which  Epic- 
tetus taught  and  practised.  He  has  a  chapter  on  Friendship,  ii.  22,  which 
I  suppose  that  Mrs.  Carter  did  not  think  of,  when  she  wrote  this  note. 

"  Iliad  xix.  321. 


CHAPTER  XI 

ABOUT  PURITY  (  CLEANLINESS) 

SOME  persons  raise  a  question  whether  the  social  feel- 
ing is  contained  in  the  nature  of  man ;  and  yet  I  think 
that  these  same  persons  would  have  no  doubt  that 
love  of  purity  is  certainly  contained  in  it,  and  that  if 
man  is  distinguished  from  other  animals  by  any  thing,  he  is 
distinguished  by  this.  When  then  we  see  any  other  animal 
cleaning  itself,  we  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  act  with 
surprise,  and  to  add  that  the  animal  is  acting  like  a  man :  and 
on  the  other  hand,  if  a  man  blames  an  animal  for  being  dirty, 
straightway  as  if  we  were  making  an  excuse  for  it,  we  say 
that  of  course  the  animal  is  not  a  human  creature.  So  we 
suppose  that  there  is  something  superior  in  man,  and  that 
we  first  receive  it  from  the  gods.  For  since  the  gods  by  their 
nature  are  pure  and  free  from  corruption,  so  far  as  men  ap- 
proach them  by  reason,  so  far  do  they  cling  to  purity  and  to 
a  love  (habit)  of  purity.  But  since  it  is  impossible  that  man's 
nature  (ov6ta)  can  be  altogether  pure  being  mixed  (com- 
posed) of  such  materials,  reason  is  applied,  as  far  as  it  is  pos- 
sible, and  reason  endeavours  to  make  human  nature  love 
purity. 

The  first  then  and  highest  purity  is  that  which  is  in  the 
soul ;  and  we  say  the  same  of  impurity.  Now  you  could  not 
discover  the  impurity  of  the  soul  as  you  could  discover  that 
of  the  body :  but  as  to  the  soul,  what  else  could  you  find  in 
it  than  that  which  makes  it  filthy  in  respect  to  the  acts  which 
are  her  own?  Now  the  acts  of  the  soul  are  movement  to-, 
wards  an  object  or  movement  from  it,  desire,  aversion,  prep- 
aration, design  (purpose),  assent.  What  then  is  it  which  in 
these  acts  makes  the  soul  filthy  and  impure?  Nothing  else 
than  her  own  bad  judgments  (  Kpifxara).  Consequently  the 
impurity  of  the  soul  is  the  soul's  bad  opinions ;  and  the  puri- 
fication of  the  soul  is  the  planting  in  it  of  proper  opinions; 
and  the  soul  is  pure  which  has  proper  opinions,  for  the  soul 

364 


DISCOURSES  365 

alone  in  her  own  acts  is  free  from  perturbation  and  pollu- 
tion. 

Now  we  ought  to  work  at  something  like  this  in  the  body 
also,  as  far  as  we  can.  It  was  impossible  for  the  defluxions 
of  the  nose  not  to  run  when  man  has  such  a  mixture  in  his 
body.  For  this  reason  nature  has  made  hands  and  the  nostrils 
themselves  as  channels  for  carrying  off  the  humours.  If  then 
a  man  sucks  up  the  defluxions,  I  say  that  he  is  not  doing  the 
act  of  a  man.  It  was  impossible  for  a  man's  feet  not  to  be 
made  muddy  and  not  be  soiled  at  all  w*hen  he  passes  through 
dirty  places.  For  this  reason  nature  (God)  has  made  water 
and  hands.  It  was  impossible  that  some  impurity  should  not 
remain  in  the  teeth  from  eating:  for  this  reason,  she  says, 
wash  the  teeth.  Why  ?  In  order  that  you  may  be  a  man  and 
not  a  wild  beast  or  a  hog.  It  was  impossible  that  from  the 
sweat  and  the  pressing  of  the  clothes  there  should  not  re- 
main some  impurity  about  the  body  which  requires  to  be 
cleaned  away.  For  this  reason  water,  oil,  hands,  towels, 
scrapers  (strigils),^  nitre,  sometimes  all  other  kinds  of 
means  are  necessary  for  cleaning  the  body.  You  do  not  act 
so :  but  the  smith  will  take  off  the  rust  from  the  ir^on  (instru- 
ments), and  he  will  have  tools  prepared  for  this  purpose,  and 
you  yourself  wash  the  platter  when  you  are  going  to  eat,  if 
you  are  not  completely  impure  and  dirty :  but  will  you  not 
wash  the  body  nor  make  it  clean  ?  Why  ?  he  replies.  I  will 
tell  you  again ;  in  the  first  place,  that  you  may  do  the  acts  of 
a  man ;  then,  that  you  may  not  be  disagreeable  to  those  with 
whom  you  associate.  You  do  something  of  this  kind  even  in 
this  matter,  and  you  do  not  perceive  it :  you  think  that  you 
deserve  to  stink.  Let  it  be  so :  deserve  to  stink.  Do  you  think 
that  also  those  who  sit  by  you,  those  who  recline  at  table  with 
you,  that  those  who  kiss  you  deserve  the  same?  Either  go 
into  a  desert,  where  you  deserve  to  go,  or  live  by  yourself, 
and  smell  yourself.  For  it  is  just  that  you  alone  should  en- 
joy your  own  impurity.  But  when  you  are  in  a  city,  to  behave 
so  inconsiderately  and  foolishly,  to  what  character  do  you 
think  that  it  belongs?  If  nature  had  entrusted  to  you  a  horse, 
would  you  have  overlooked  and  neglected  him?  And  now 
think  that  you  have  been  entrusted  with  your  own  body  as 
with  a  horse;  wash  it,  wipe  it,  take  care  that  no  man  turns 


366  EPICTETUS 

away  from  it,  that  no  one  gets  out  of  the  way  for  it.  But  who 
does  not  get  out  of  the  way  of  a  dirty  man,  of  a  stinking  man, 
of  a  man  whose  skin  is  foul,  more  than  he  does  out  of  the 
way  of  a  man  who  is  daubed  with  muck  ?  That  smell  is  from 
without,  it  is  put  upon  him ;  but  the  pther  smell  is  from  want 
of  care,  from  within,  and  in  a  manner  from  a  body  in  putre- 
faction. 

But  Socrates  washed  himself  seldom. — Yes,  but  his  body 
was  clean  and  fair:  and  it  was  so  agreeable  and  sweet  that 
the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  noble  loved  him,  and  desired 
to  sit  by  him  rather  than  by  the  side  of  those  who  had  the 
handsomest  forms.  It  was  in  his  power  neither  to  use  the 
bath  nor  to  wash  himself,  if  he  chose;  and  yet  the  rare  use  of 
water  had  an  effect.  [If  you  do  not  choose  to  wash  with 
warm  water,  wash  with  cold.^]     But  Aristophanes  says 

"Those  who  are  pale,  unshod,  'tis  those  I  mean."* 

For  Aristophanes  says  of  Socrates  that  he  also  walked  the 
air  and  stole  clothes  from  the  palaestra.^  But  all  who  have 
written  about  Socrates  bear  exactly  the  contrary  evidence  in 
his  favour ;  they  say  that  he  was  pleasant  not  only  to  hear, 
but  also  to  see.^  On  the  other  hand  they  write  the  same  about 
Diogenes.®  For  we  ought  not  even  by  the  appearance  of 
the  body  to  deter  the  multitude  from  philosophy ;  but  as  in 
other  things  a  philosopher  should  show  himself  cheerful  and 
tranquil,  so  also  he  should  in  the  things  that  relate  to  the 
body ;  "See,  ye  men,  that  I  have  nothing,  that  I  want  noth- 
ing :  see  how  I  am  without  a  house,  and  without  a  city,  and 
an  exile,  if  it  happens  to  be  so,"^  and  without  a  hearth  I  live 
more  free  from  trouble  and  more  happily  than  all  of  noble 
birth  and  than  the  rich.  But  look  at  my  poor  body  also  and 
observe  that  it  is  not  injured  by  my  hard  way  of  living."  But 
if  a  man  says  this  to  me,  who  has  the  appearance  (dress)  and 
face  of  a  condemned  man,  what  God  shall  persuade  me  to  ap- 
proach philosophy,  if  it  makes  men  such  persons  ?  Far  from 
it ;  I  would  not  choose  to  do  so,  even  if  I  were  going  to  be- 
come a  wise  man.  I  indeed  would  rather  that  a  young  man, 
who  is  making  his  first  movements  towards  philosophy, 
should  come  to  me  with  his  hair  carefully  trimmed  than 


DISCOURSES  367 

with  it  dirty  and  rough,  for  there  is  seen  in  him  a  certain 
notion  (appearance)  of  beauty  and  a  desire  of  (attempt 
at)  that  which  is  becoming;  and  where  he  supposes  it 
to  be,  there  also  he  strives  that  it  shall  be.  It  is  only  nec- 
essary to  show  him  (what  it  is)  and  to  say :  "Young  man, 
you  seek  beauty,  and  you  do  well;  you  must  know  then 
that  it  (is  produced)  grows  in  that  part  of  you  where 
you  have  the  rational  faculty;  seek  it  there  where  you 
have  the  movements  towards  and  the  movements  from 
things,  where  you  have  the  desires  towards,  and  the 
aversion  from  things ;  for  this  is  what  you  have  in  yourself 
of  a  superior  kind ;  but  the  poor  body  is  naturally  only  earth : 
why  do  you  labour  about  it  to  no  purpose  ?  if  you  shall  learn 
nothing  else,  you  will  learn  from  time  that  the  body  is  noth- 
ing." But  if  a  man  comes  to  me  daubed  with  filth,  dirty,  with 
a  moustache  down  to  his  knees,  what  can  I  say  to  him,  by 
what  kind  of  resemblance  can  I  lead  him  on?  For  about 
what  has  he  busied  himself  which  resembles  beauty,  that  I 
may  be  able  to  change  him  and  say.  Beauty  is  not  in  this, 
but  in  that?  Would  you  have  me  to  tell  him,  that  beauty 
consists  not  in  being  daubed  with  muck,  but  that  it  Kes  in  the 
rational  part?  Has  he  any  desire  of  beauty?  has  he  any 
form  of  it  in  his  mind  ?  Go  and  talk  to  a  hog,  and  tell  him 
not  to  roll  in  the  mud. 

For  this  reason  the  words  of  Xenocrates  touched  Polemon 
also,  since  he  was  a  lover  of  beauty,  for  he  entered  (the 
room)  having  in  him  certain  incitements  (ivavdMara)  to  love 
of  beauty,  but  he  looked  for  it  in  the  wrong  place.^  For 
nature  has  not  made  even  the  animals  dirty  which  live  with 
man.  Does  a  horse  ever  wallow  in  the  mud,  or  a  well  bred 
dog?  But  the  hog,  the  dirty  geese,  and  worms  and  spi- 
ders do,  which  are  banished  furthest  from  human  inter- 
course. Do  you  then  being  a  man  choose  to  be  not  as  one  of 
the  animals  which  live  with  man,  but  rather  a  worm,  or  a 
spider?  Will  you  not  wash  yourself  somewhere  some  time 
in  such  manner  as  you  choose?*  Will  you  not  wash  off  the 
dirt  from  your  body?  Will  you  not  come  clean  that  those 
with  whom  you  keep  company  may  have  pleasure  in  being 
with  you  ?     But  do  you  go  with  us  even  into  the  temples  in 


368  EPICTETUS 

such  a  state,  where  it  is  not  permitted  to  spit  or  blow  the 
nose,  being  a  heap  of  spittle  and  of  snot? 

What  then?  does  any  man  (that  is,  do  I)  require  you  to 
ornament  yourself  ?  Far  from  it ;  except  to  ornament  that 
which  we  really  are  by  nature,  the  rational  faculty,  the  opin- 
ions, the  actions;  but  as  to  the  body  only  so  far  as  purity, 
only  so  far  as  not  to  give  offence.  But  if  you  are  told  that 
you  ought  not  to  wear  garments  dyed  with  purple,  go  and 
daub  your  cloak  with  muck  or  tear  it.^^  But  how  shall  I 
have  a  neat  cloak  ?  Man,  you  have  water ;  wash  it.  Here  is 
a  youth  worthy  of  being  loved,^^  here  is  an  old  man  worthy 
of  loving  and  being  loved  in  return,  a  fit  person  for  a  man  to 
intrust  to  him  a  son's  instruction,  to  whom  daughters  and 
young  men  shall  come,  if  opportunity  shall  so  happen,  that 
the  teacher  shall  deliver  his  lessons  to  them  on  a  dunghill. 
Let  this  not  be  so :  every  deviation  comes  from  something 
which  is  in  man's  nature;  but  this  (deviation)  is  near  being 
something  not  in  man's  nature. 

NOTES 

*  The  ZvdTfla,  as  Epictetus  names  it,  was  the  Roman  "strigilis." 
which  was  used  for  the  scraping  and  cleaning  of  the  body  in  bathing. 
Persius  (v.  126)  writes — 

"I,  puer,  et  strigiles  Crispini  ad  balnea  defer." 

The  strigiles  "were  of  bronze  or  iron  of  various  forms.  They  were 
applied  to  the  body  much  in  the  same  way  as  we  see  a  piece  of  hoop 
applied  to  a  sweating  horse."     Pompeii,  edited  by  Dr.  Dyer. 

See  what  is  said  of  this  passage  in  the  latter  part  of  this  chapter. 

*  Nubes,  V.  102. 

*  Aristophanes,  Nubes,  v.  225,  and  v.  179. 

*  Zenophon,  Memorab.  iii.  12. 
'  See  iii.  22. 

'  Diogenes,  it  is  said,  was  driven  from  his  native  town  Sinope  in  Asia 
on  a  charge  of  having  debased  or  counterfeited  the  coinage.  Upton. 
It  is  probable  that  this  is  false. 

*  As  to  Polemon  see  iii.  i,  14. 

*  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  words  "if  you  do  not  choose  to  wash 
with  warm  water,  wash  with  cold,"  p.  366,  belong  to  this  place. 

"  This  is  the  literal  translation :  but  it  means  "will  you  go,  etc.,  tear 
it?" 

"  "The  youth,  probably,  means  the  scholar,  who  neglects  neatness ; 
and  the  old  man,  the  tutor,  that  gives  him  no  precept  or  example  of  it" 
Mrs.  Carter. 


CHAPTER  XII 

ON   ATTENTION 

WHEN  you  have  remitted  your  attention  for  a  short 
time,  do  not  imagine  this,  that  you  will  recover 
it  when  you  choose ;  but  let  this  thought  be  pres- 
ent to  you,  that  in  consequence  of  the  fault  com- 
mitted to-day  your  affairs  must  be  in  a  worse  condition  for 
all  that  follows.  For  first,  and  what  causes  most  trouble,  a 
habit  of  not  attending  is  formed  in  you ;  then  a  habit  of  de- 
ferring your  attention.  And  continually  from  time  to  time 
you  drive  away  by  deferring  it  the  happiness  of  life,  proper 
behaviour,  the  being  and  living  conformably  to  nature.  If 
then  the  procrastination  of  attention  is  profitable,  the  com- 
plete omission  of  attention  is  more  profitable ;  but  if  it  is  not 
profitable,  why  do  you  not  maintain  your  attention  constant? 
— To-day  I  choose  to  play. — Well  then,  ought  you  not  to 
play  with  attention  ? — I  choose  to  sing. — What  then  hinders 
you  from  doing  so  with  attention  ?  Is  there  any  part  of  life 
excepted,  to  which  attention  does  not  extend  ?  For  will  you 
do  it  (any  thing  in  life)  worse  by  using  attention,  and  better 
by  not  attending  at  all  ?  And  what  else  of  the  things  in  life 
is  done  better  by  those  who  do  not  use  attention  ?  Does  he 
who  works  in  wood  work  better  by  not  attending  to  it  ?  Does 
the  captain  of  a  ship  manage  it  better  by  not  attending  ?  and 
is  any  of  the  smaller  acts  done  better  by  inattention?  Do 
you  not  see  that  when  you  have  let  your  mind  loose,  it  is  no 
longer  in  your  power  to  recall  it,  either  to  propriety,  or  to 
modesty,  or  to  moderation:  but  you  do  every  thing  that 
comes  into  your  mind  in  obedience  to  your  inclinations. 

To  what  things  then  ought  I  to  attend?  First  to  those 
general  (principles)  and  to  have  them  in  readiness,  and  with- 
out them  not  to  sleep,  not  to  rise,  not  to  drink,  not  to  eat,  not 
to  converse  (associate)  with  men;  that  no  man  is  master  of 
another  man's  will,  but  that  in  the  will  alone  is  the  good  and 
the  bad.  No  man  then  has  the  power  either  to  procure  for 
me  good  or  to  involve  me  in  any  evil,  but  I  alone  myself  over. 
24  369 


370  EPICTETUS 

myself  have  power  in  these  things.  When  then  these  things 
are  secured  to  me,  why  need  I  be  disturbed  about  external 
things  ?  What  tyrant  is  formidable,  what  disease,  what  pov- 
erty, what  offence  (from  any  man)?  Well,  I  have  not 
pleased  a  certain  person.  Is  he  then  (the  pleasing  of  him) 
my  work,  my  judgment?  No.  Why  then  should  I  trouble 
myself  about  him? — But  he  is  supposed  to  be  some  one  (of 
importance).— He  will  look  to  that  himself;  and  those  who 
think  so  will  also.  But  I  have  one  whom  I  ought  to  please, 
to  whom  I  ought  to  subject  myself,  whom  I  ought  to  obey, 
God  and  those  who  are  next  to  him.  He  has  placed  me  with 
myself,  and  has  put  my  will  in  obedience  to  myself  alone, 
and  has  given  me  rules  for  the  right  use  of  it;  and  when  I 
follow  these  rules  in  syllogisms,  I  do  not  care  for  any  man 
who  says  any  thing  else  (different)  :  in  sophistical  argu- 
ment, I  care  for  no  man.  Why  then  in  greater  matters  do 
those  annoy  me  who  blame  me?  What  is  the  cause  of  this 
perturbation?  Nothing  else  than  because  in  this  matter 
(topic)  I  am  not  discipHned.  For  all  knowledge  (science) 
despises  ignorance  and  the  ignorant;  and  not  only  the 
sciences,  but  even  the  arts.  Produce  any  shoemaker  that 
you  please,  and  he  ridicules  the  many  in  respect  to  his  own 
work  (business).     Produce  any  carpenter. 

First  then  we  ought  to  have  these  (rules)  in  readiness, 
and  to  do  nothing  without  them,  and  we  ought  to  keep  the 
soul  directed  to  this  mark,  to  pursue  nothing  external,  and 
nothing  which  belongs  to  others  (or  is  in  the  power  of 
others),  but  to  do  as  he  has  appointed  who  has  the  power; 
we  ought  to  pursue  altogether  the  things  which  are  in  the 
power  of  the  will,  and  all  other  things  as  it  is  permitted. 
Next  to  this  we  ought  to  remember  who  we  are,  and  what 
is  our  name,  and  to  endeavour  to  direct  our  duties  towards 
the  character  (nature)  of  our  several  relations  (in  life)  in 
this  manner:  what  is  the  season  for  singing,  what  is  the 
season  for  play,  and  in  whose  presence ;  what  will  be  the  con- 
sequence of  the  act ;  whether  our  associates  will  despise  us, 
whether  we  shall  despise  them;  when  to  jeer  (dK&ipat),  and 
whom  to  ridicule ;  and  on  what  occasion  to  comply  and  with 
whom ;  and  finally,  in  complying  how  to  maintain  our  own 
character.     But  wherever  you  have  deviated  from  any  of 


DISCOURSES  37 1 

these  rules,  there  is  damage  immediately,  not  from  any  thing 
external,  but  from  the  action  itself. 

What  then?  is  it  possible  to  be  free  from  faults  (if  you 
do  all  this)  ?  It  is  not  possible ;  but  this  is  possible,  to  direct 
your  efforts  incessantly  to  being  faultless.  For  we  must  be 
content  if  by  never  remitting  this  attention  we  shall  escape 
at  least  a  few  errors.  But  now  when  you  have  said,  "To- 
morrow I  will  begin  to  attend,"  you  must  be  told  that  you 
are  saying  this,  "To-day  I  will  be  shameless,  disregardful  of 
time  .and  place,  mean;  it  will  be  in  the  power  of  others  to 
give  me  pain ;  to-day  I  will  be  passionate,  and  envious."  See 
how  many  evil  things  you  are  permitting  yourself  to  do.  If 
it  is  good  to  use  attention  to-morrow,  how  much  better  is  it 
to  do  so  to-day  ?  if  to-morrow  it  is  in  your  interest  to  attend, 
much  more  is  it  to-day,  that  you  may  be  able  to  do  so  to- 
morrow also,  and  may  not  defer  it  again  to  the  third  day. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

AGAINST  OR  TO  THOSE  WHO  READILY  TELL  THEIR  AFFAIRS 

WHEN  a  man  has  seemed  to  us  to  have  talked  with 
simphcity  (candour)  about  his  own  affairs,  how 
is  it  that  at  last  we  are  ourselves  also  induced  to 
discover  to  him  our  own  secrets  and  we  think 
this  to  be  candid  behaviour?  In  the  first  place  because  it 
seems  unfair  for  a  man  to  have  listened  to  the  affairs  of  his 
neighbour,  and  not  to  communicate  to  him  also  in  turn  our 
own  affairs ;  next,  because  we  think  that  we  shall  not  present 
to  them  the  appearance  of  candid  men  when  we  are  silent 
about  our  own  affairs.  Indeed  men  are  often  accustomed  to 
say,  I  have  told  you  all  my  affairs,  will  you  tell  me  nothing 
of  your  own?  where  is  this  done? — Besides,  we  have  also 
this  opinion  that  we  can  safely  trust  him  who  has  already 
told  us  his  own  affairs ;  for  the  notion  rises  in  our  mind  that 
this  man  could  never  divulge  our  affairs  because  he  would 
be  cautious  that  we  also  should  not  divulge  his.  In  this  way 
also  the  incautious  are  caught  by  the  soldiers  at  Rome.  A 
soldier  sits  by  you  in  a  common  dress  and  begins  to  speak 
ill  of  Csesar;  then  you,  as  if  you  had  received  a  pledge  of 
his  fidelity  by  his  having  begun  the  abuse,  utter  yourself  also 
what  you  think,  and  then  you  are  carried  off  in  chains.^ 

Something  of  this  kind  happens  to  us  also  generally. 
Now  as  this  man  has  confidently  intrusted  his  affairs  to  me, 
shall  I  also  do  so  to  any  man  whom  I  meet?  (No),  for 
when  I  have  heard,  I  keep  silence,  if  I  am  of  such  a  disposi- 
tion ;  but  he  goes  forth  and  tells  all  men  what  he  has  heard. 
Then  if  I  hear  what  has  been  done,  if  I  be  a  man  like  him,  I 
resolve  to  be  revenged,  I  divulge  what  he  has  told  me;  I 
both  disturb  others  and  am  disturbed  myself.  But  if  I  re- 
member that  one  man  does  not  injure  another,  and  that  every 
man's  acts  injure  and  profit  him,  I  secure  this,  that  I  do  not 
any  thing  like  him,  but  still  I  suffer  what  I  do  suffer  through 
my  own  silly  talk. 

True :  but  it  is  unfair  when  you  have  heard  the  secrets  of 

37a 


DISCOURSES  373 

your  neighbour  for  you  in  your  turn  to  communicate  nothing 
to  him. — Did  I  ask  you  for  your  secrets,  my  man?  did  you 
communicate  your  affairs  on  certain  terms,  that  you  should 
in  return  hear  mine  also?  If  you  are  a  babbler  and  think 
that  all  who  meet  you  are  friends,  do  you  wish  me  also  to  be 
like  you  ?  But  why,  if  you  did  well  in  intrusting  your  affairs 
to  me,  and  it  is  not  well  for  me  to  intrust  mine  to  you,  do  you 
wish  me  to  be  so  rash  ?  It  is  just  the  same  as  if  I  had  a  cask 
which  is  water-tight,  and  you  one  with  a  hole  in  it,  and  you 
should  come  and  deposit  with  me  your  wine  that  I  might  put 
it  into  my  cask,  and  then  should  complain  that  I  also  did  not 
intrust  my  wine  to  you,  for  you  have  a  cask  with  a  hole  in  it. 
How  then  is  there  any  equality  here?  You  intrusted  your 
affairs  to  a  man  who  is  faithful,  and  modest,  to  a  man  who 
thinks  that  his  own  actions  alone  are  injurious  and  (or)  use- 
ful, and  that  nothing  external  is.  Would  you  have  me  in- 
trust mine  to  you,  a  man  who  has  dishonoured  his  own  fac- 
ulty of  will,  and  who  wishes  to  gain  some  small  bit  of  money 
or  some  office  or  promotion  in  the  court  (emperor's  palace), 
even  if  you  should  be  going  to  murder  your  own  children, 
like  Medea?  Where  (in  what)  is  this  equality  (fairness)  ? 
But  show  yourself  to  me  to  be  faithful,  modest,  and  steady : 
show  me  that  you  have  friendly  opinions;  show  that  your 
cask  has  no  hole  in  it ;  and  you  will  see  how  I  shall  not  wait 
for  you  to  trust  me  with  your  affairs,  but  I  myself  shall  come 
to  you  and  ask  you  to  hear  mine.  For  who  does  not  choose 
to  make  use  of  a  good  vessel  ?  Who  does  not  value  a  benevo- 
lent and  faithful  adviser?  who  will  not  willingly  receive  a 
man  who  is  ready  to  bear  a  share,  as  we  may  say,  of  the  diffi- 
culty of  his  circumstances,  and  by  this  very  act  to  ease  the 
burden,  by  taking  a  part  of  it. 

True :  but  I  trust  you ;  you  do  not  trust  me. — In  the  first 
place,  not  even  do  you  trust  me,  but  you  are  a  babbler,  and 
for  this  reason  you  can  not  hold  anything ;  for  indeed,  if  it 
is  true  that  you  trust  me,  trust  your  affairs  to  me  only ;  but 
now  whenever  you  see  a  man  at  leisure,  you  seat  yourself  by 
him  and  say :  "Brother,  I  have  no  friend  more  benevolent 
than  you  nor  dearer ;  I  request  you  to  listen  to  my  affairs." 
And  you  do  this  even  to  those  who  are  not  known  to  you  at 


374  EPICTETUS 

all.  But  if  you  really  trust  me,  it  is  plain  that  you  trust  me 
because  I  am  faithful  and  modest,  not  because  I  have  told 
my  affairs  to  you.  Allow  me  then  to  have  the  same  opinion 
about  you.  Show  me  that  if  one  man  tells  his  affairs  to 
another,  he  who  tells  them  is  faithful  and  modest.  For  if 
this  were  so,  I  would  go  about  and  tell  my  affairs  to  every 
man,  if  that  would  make  me  faithful  and  modest.  But  the 
thing  is  not  so,  and  it  requires  no  common  opinions  (princi- 
ples). If  then  you  see  a  man  who  is  busy  about  things  not 
dependent  on  his  will  and  subjecting  his  will  to  them,  you 
must  know  that  this  man  has  ten  thousand  persons  to  compel 
and  hinder  him.  He  has  no  need  of  pitch  or  the  wheel  to 
compel  him  to  declare  what  he  knows  •?  but  a  little  girl's  nod, 
if  it  should  so  happen,  will  move  him,  the  blandishment  of 
one  who  belongs  to  Caesar's  court,  desire  of  a  magistracy  or 
of  an  inheritance,  and  things  without  end  of  that  sort.  You 
must  remember  then  among  general  principles  that  secret 
discourses  (discourses  about  secret  matters)  require  fidelity 
and  corresponding  opinions.  But  where  can  we  now  find 
these  easily?  Or  if  you  can  not  answer  that  question,  let 
some  one  point  out  to  me  a  man  who  can  say :  I  care  only 
about  the  things  which  are  my  own,  the  things  which  are  not 
subject  to  hindrance,  the  things  which  are  by  nature  free. 
This  I  hold  to  be  the  nature  of  the  good :  but  let  all  other 
things  be  as  they  are  allowed;   I  do  not  concern  myself. 

NOTES 

^  The  man,  whether  a  soldier  or  not,  was  an  informer,  one  of  those 
vile  men  who  carried  on  this  shameful  business  under  the  empire.  He 
was  what  Juvenal  names  a  "delator."  Upton,  who  refers  to  the  life  of 
Hadrian  by  .^lius  Spartianus,  speaks  even  of  this  emperor  employing 
soldiers  named  Frumentarii  for  the  purpose  of  discovering  what  was 
said  and  done  in  private  houses.  John  the  Baptist  (Luke  iii.  14)  in 
answer  to  the  question  of  the  soldiers,  "And  what  shall  we  do?"  said 
unto  them  "Do  violence  to  no  man,  neither  accuse  any  falsely;  and  be 
content  with  your  wages."     Upton. 

*  The  wheel  and  pitch  were  instruments  of  torture  to  extract  con- 
fessions.    See  ii.  6,  18,  and  Schweighauser's  note  there. 


END   OF   THE   DISCOURSES   OF   EPICTETUS 


MEDITATIONS  OF 
MARCUS  AURELIUS  ANTONINUS 


Meditations  of  Aurelius 
George  Long 


HantmarKs  of  Ctbili^atton 


MARCUS  AURELIUS 
From  a  bust  in  Rome 


Meditations  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus 

Translated  by 

George  Long 


With  a  Critical  and  Biographical  Introduction 
by  John  Lancaster  Spalding 


Illustrated 


New  York 

D.  Appleton  and  Company 

1904 


COHYRIGHT,    1900, 

Bv  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


MARCUS  AURELIUS 


THE  intimate  thoughts  of  a  wise  and  noble  man  con- 
cerning whatever  touches  the  human  heart  most 
nearly  are  necessarily  interesting,  and  when  he  who 
utters  them  has  stood  for  years  at  the  head  of  a  vast  and 
powerful  empire  his  words  receive  a  new  significance, 
which  is  still  further  heightened  by  the  fact  that  he  writes 
not  for  the  public,  but  simply  to  render  to  himself  an  ac- 
count of  himself.  This  is  what  we  have  in  the  "  Medita- 
tions "  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  Roman  emperor,  a  man 
so  modest,  so  sincere,  so  kindly,  so  magnanimous,  that  to 
know  him  is  to  conceive  a  higher  opinion  of  the  race  which 
in  him  attains  to  such  dignity  and  virtue.  He  was  born 
at  Rome  in  the  year  121  of  the  Christian  era,  and  died  in 
180,  a  few  weeks  before  his  fifty-ninth  birthday.  He  was 
the  nephew  and  adopted  son  of  Antoninus  Pius,  whom  from 
early  manhood  he  assisted  in  administering  public  affairs. 
He  became  emperor  at  the  age  of  forty,  and  reigned  nine- 
teen years,  twelve  of  which  he  passed  in  Asia  Minor,  Syria, 
Greece,  Egypt,  and  the  countries  on  the  Danube,  putting 
down  rebellion  or  defending  the  empire  against  the  at- 
tacks of  the  barbarians,  having  at  the  same  time  to  face 
various  public  misfortunes — inundations,  famines,  earth- 
quakes, fires,  and  pestilence — which  caused  widespread 
misery  and  dismay.  But  though  constantly  surrounded  by 
g^ave  difficulties  and  dangers,  and  compelled  to  travel  to 


iv  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

almost  every  part  of  the  empire,  he  not  only  found  time 
to  devote  himself,  as  a  wise  and  careful  ruler,  to  even  the 
minor  interests  and  details  of  government,  but  also  to 
occupy  himself  with  the  study  of  philosophy  and  his  own 
improvement.  It  is  the  history  of  his  inner  life,  as  re- 
corded in  his  journal,  which  has  made  him  immortal,  and 
placed  him  in  the  company  of  the  few  in  whom  the  lovers 
of  wisdom  and  perfection  find  it  possible  to  take  genuine 
delight.  The  book  has  small  literary  merit.  The  lan- 
guage is  without  elegance  or  distinction.  He  tells  us  that 
he  had  learned  to  abstain  from  rhetoric  and  poetry  and 
fine  writing.  He  studied  simplicity  and  plainness  in  all 
things.  He  jots  down  detached  thoughts,  often  merely 
gives  us  notes  or  indications,  and  his  views  are  seldom 
profound  or  original.  He  is  a  Stoic,  but  does  not  develop 
or  follow  consistently  any  system  of  philosophy.  He 
wavers  and  is  uncertain  precisely  in  those  things  in  which 
a  firm-rooted  faith  is  most  inspiring  and  invigorating. 
Running  all  through  his  "  Meditations  "  there  is  an  under- 
current of  sadness  and  despondency.  Is  it  because  he  is 
compelled  to  labour  in  a  vocation  for  which  Nature  did  not 
intend  him,  or  is  it  due  to  the  sight  of  the  corruption  and 
worthlessness  of  those  by  whom  he  was  surrounded,  indi- 
cating plainly  to  him  that  the  fabric  of  Roman  civilization 
was  falling  to  ruin,  or  is  it  to  be  attributed  to  the  fatalism 
which  determines  and  controls  his  world-view?  There  was 
little  either  in  the  condition  of  society  or  in  his  own  re- 
ligious faith  to  cheer  and  strengthen;  and  yet  it  is  impos- 
sible to  live  with  him  in  his  book  without  feeling  that  we 
are  in  the  company  of  one  of  the  best,  wisest,  and  bravest 
of  men,  of  one  who,  placed  on  the  summit  of  power  and 
splendour,  was  never  for  a  moment  blinded  by  the  glitter 
and  the  show,  but,  looking  steadfastly  at  the  heart  of  things, 
remained  simple,  sincere,  modest,  self-controlled,  and  lov- 
ing.   We  forget  that  he  was  an  emperor;  we  care  not  in 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  V 

what  style  he  utters  himself;  we  are  not  curious  about  his 
metaphysical  theories,  or  disposed  to  argue  and  dispute; 
it  is  enough  that  we  are  in  his  presence,  that  we  hear  his 
words  of  wisdom  and  Stoic  piety,  with  the  reverence, 
candour,  and  devoutness  with  which  he  speaks  them. 

He  is  a  born  teacher  of  morals,  a  born  preacher  of  the 
surpassing  worth  of  the  inner  life;  and  this  natural  bent 
was  confirmed  by  his  education,  of  which  he  has  given  an 
account  in  the  first  book  of  the  "  Meditations,"  where  he 
mentions  with  gratitude  that  he  was  not  sent  to  a  public 
school,  and  that  his  tutors  were  men  of  character  and  learn- 
ing. "  To  the  gods,"  he  says,  "  I  am  indebted  for  having 
good  grandfathers,  good  parents,  a  good  sister,  good 
teachers,  good  associates,  good  kinsmen  and  friends — 
nearly  everything  good."  He  began  his  studies,  as  was 
the  custom  of  the  time,  with  rhetoric  and  poetry,  but  at 
the  age  of  twelve  he  became  a  pupil  of  the  Stoics,  and 
adopted  their  austere  practices  as  well  as  their  dress,  lead- 
ing a  life  so  abstemious  and  laborious  as  to  injure  his  health, 
which  remained  delicate.  Much  of  his  youth  was  passed 
in  the  country,  at  the  villa  of  Lorium,  where,  while  con- 
tinuing to  read,  he  engaged  in  the  pleasures  of  the  chase, 
mingled  with  the  vintagers,  and  occupied  himself  with  ath- 
letic sports.  Here,  too,  he  enjoyed  more  exclusively  the 
society  and  conversation  of  his  mother,  from  whom,  he 
tells  us,  he  learned  piety  and  beneficence,  and  abstinence 
not  only  from  evil  deeds,  but  even  from  evil  thoughts,  and 
simplicity  in  his  way  of  living  far  removed  from  the  habits 
of  the  rich.  By  her  influence  also  he  was  strengthened  to 
preserve  intact  the  virginal  flower  of  his  youth.  Nor  does 
he  forget  to  mention  the  admirable  precepts  given  by  his 
tutors,  who  taught  him  to  love  work,  to  deny  himself, 
to  endure  misfortunes  without  complaint,  not  to  deviate 
from  his  purpose,  to  be  considerate  of  others,  not  to  listen 
to  evil  speech,  to  be  grave  without  affectation,  and  not 


Vi  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

to  seek  excuses  for  neglecting  duty.  Rusticus,  whom  he 
thanks  for  having  made  him  acquainted  with  the  "  Dis- 
courses of  Epictetus,"  warned  him  against  the  study  of 
what  is  merely  speculative  or  ornamental.  The  example 
of  his  masters  made  a  greater  impression  even  than  their 
words;  and  what  touched  him  most  was  their  patience, 
firmness,  equanimity,  mildness,  beneficence,  uprightness, 
and  sincerity.  In  these  "  Meditations  "  there  is  not  the 
faintest  trace  of  vanity.  He  is  lowly  minded  and  the  most 
modest  of  men.  His  candour  and  truthfulness  are  per- 
fect. A  lie  seems  to  him  to  be  an  outrage  upon  his  nature, 
upon  the  divinity  that  dwells  in  him.  He  strives  not  only 
to  think  and  feel,  but  to  love  what  he  speaks.  He  is  present 
in  these  thoughts,  and  we  almost  seem  to  have  bodily  sight 
of  him  as  he  lived  and  bore  himself  nearly  eighteen  hun- 
dred years  ago. 

The  habit  of  recollection,  of  self-examination  was  recom- 
mended and  practised  by  the  Stoics  before  the  time  of 
Marcus  Aurelius.  "  Each  day,"  says  Seneca,  "  we  should 
call  our  soul  to  account.  This  was  the  custom  of  Sextius, 
who,  before  taking  his  nightly  rest,  invariably  passed  his 
conduct  in  review:  Of  what  fault  hast  thou  cured  thyself 
to-day?  What  passion  hast  thou  combated?  In  what  hast 
thou  become  better?  "  And  the  philosopher  goes  on  to 
tell  us  how  each  evening,  when  the  light  was  taken  from 
his  room,  and  his  wife,  from  respect  for  his  pious  practice, 
became  silent,  he  also  was  accustomed  to  recall  whatever 
he  had  done  or  spoken  during  the  day,  without  dissimulat- 
ing or  omitting  anything  whatever;  and  that  when  he  found 
aught  blameworthy,  he  pardoned  himself  only  on  condi- 
tion that  the  fault  should  not  again  be  committed.  All 
that  concerns  a  good  life  was  brought  into  this  inquiry — 
the  right  use  of  time,  the  avoidance  of  the  occasions  of 
wrongdoing,  human  respect,  the  keeping  guard  over  one's 
thoughts  and  words,  mindfulness  of  the  presence  of  God, 


MARCOS   AURELIUS  vii 

of  the  certainty  of  death,  and  of  the  necessity  of  being  pre- 
pared to  meet  it  with  courage  and  dignity.  We  do  not 
know  that  Marcus  AureHus  practised  this  daily  and  me- 
thodical examination  of  conscience,  but  he  certainly  habit- 
ually meditated  the  great  moral  truths,  living  in  ideas, 
not  in  material  interests;  in  principles,  not  in  passions.  In 
his  youth  even,  as  we  learn  from  one  of  his  letters  to 
Fronto,  he  was  accustomed  to  make  extracts  from  the 
books  he  read,  and  to  these  little  volumes,  into  which  he 
had  gathered  the  fine  essence  of  the  best  writers,  he  doubt- 
less often  recurred.  In  this  way  he  cultivated  a  taste  for 
the  brief  and  pregnant  sayings  of  the  Stoic  and  other  phi- 
losophers, and  found  in  them  new  incentives  to  lead  a 
worthy  life.  A  great  thought,  a  winged  word  may  have 
power  not  only  to  rouse  the  conscience  and  the  will,  but 
it  may  remain  with  us  as  a  permanent  stimulus  to  virtuous 
conduct.  A  phrase  may  fasten  itself  in  the  mind  as  though 
rivetted  with  bolts  of  steel,  or  it  may  insinuate  itself  into 
the  current  of  our  opinions  and  beliefs,  and,  blending  with 
it,  make  the  waters  of  life  purer  and  sweeter.  He  loved 
thoughts  of  this  kind,  and  he  has  written  many  which  will 
continue  to  be  a  source  of  joy  and  strength  as  long  as  gen- 
erous minds  and  hearts  shall  be  found  on  earth.  What  he 
says  has  additional  charm  and  power  because  he  says  it, 
because  it  is  the  utterance  of  a  genuine  man,  the  purity 
and  nobleness  of  whose  character  can  not  be  called  in  ques- 
tion, the  testimony  which  his  contemporaries  bore  to  his 
wisdom,  magnanimity,  and  goodness  being  confirmed  by 
the  consenting  voice  of  succeeding  generations.  How 
pleasant  and  invigorating  it  is  to  read  considerations  like 
these:  "  Such  as  thy  habitual  thoughts,  such  also  will  be 
the  character  of  thy  mind,  for  the  soul  is  dyed  by  the 
thoughts.  Dye  it  then  with  a  continuous  series  of  such 
thoughts  as  these;  for  instance,  that  where  a  man  can  live, 
there  he  can  also  live  well.    Live  with  the  gods.     Hold 


Viii  MARCUS  AURtLIUS  ' 

good  to  consist  in  the  disposition  to  justice  and  the  prac- 
tice of  it,  and  in  this  let  thy  desire  terminate.  The  greatest 
part  of  what  we  say  or  do  being  unnecessary,  if  a  man 
takes  this  away,  he  will  have  more  leisure  and  less  uneasi- 
ness. We  ought  to  check  in  the  series  of  our  thoughts 
everything  that  is  without  a  purpose  and  useless.  What 
more  dost  thou  want  when  thou  hast  done  a  man  a  service? 
Art  thou  not  content  that  thou  hast  done  something  con- 
formable to  thy  nature,  and  dost  thou  seek  to  be  paid  for 
it,  just  as  if  the  eye  demanded  a  recompense  for  seeing  or 
the  feet  for  walking?  Have  I  done  something"  for  the  gen- 
eral good?  Well,  then,  I  have  had  my  reward.  Let  it 
not  be  in  any  man's  power  to  say  truly  of  thee  that  thou 
art  not  simple  or  that  thou  art  not  good,  but  let  him  be 
a  liar  whoever  shall  think  anything  of  this  kind  about  thee. 
Let  men  see,  let  them  know  a  real  man  who  lives  accord- 
ing to  Nature.  If  they  can  not  endure  him,  let  them  kill 
him.  Look  within.  Within  is  the  fountain  of  good,  and 
it  will  ever  bubble  up  if  thou  wilt  ever  dig." 

Epictetus  and  Seneca  had  taught  much  of  what  is  best 
in  the  "  Thoughts  "  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  but  in  his  com- 
pany we  seem  to  breathe  the  air  of  a  higher  and  serener 
world.  He  is  meek  and  patient,  affectionate  and  helpful. 
In  his  words  there  is  nothing  to  recall  the  hard  and  haughty 
spirit  of  stoicism.  He  lives  with  his  soul,  but  he  finds 
the  good  of  life  in  doing  good.  He  is  a  worker,  not  a 
dreamer.  He  strives  always  to  behave  like  a  Roman,  like 
a  man;  he  never  thinks  of  himself  apart  from  his  fellow- 
men.  What  is  not  useful  for  the  swarm  is  not  useful  for 
the  bee.  His  purpose  is  to  keep  himself  holy,  and  to  labour 
for  the  salvation  of  men,  for  the  welfare  of  society.  He 
seeks  inner  perfection  in  the  midst  of  courts  and  camps, 
but  neglects  no  duty  which  his  high  office  imposes.  In  his 
tent,  surrounded  by  barbarous  hordes,  he  directs  his  armies, 
and  still  has  time  to  write  his  tender  and  lofty  thoughts. 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  ix 

In  these  he  finds  the  strength  to  bear  the  awful  burden 
which  is  laid  upon  him.  Each  morning  he  reminds  him- 
self that  he  awakens  to  do  a  man's  work.  Philosophy  is 
his  mother,  while  the  court  is  but  a  stepmother,  "  Return 
to  philosophy  frequently,  and  repose  in  her,  through  whom 
what  thou  meetest  with  in  the  court  appears  to  thee  toler- 
able, and  thou  appearest  tolerable  in  the  court."  He  is 
conscious  of  the  temptations  and  dangers  of  his  exalted 
position,  and  frequently  makes  them  the  subject  of  his 
"  Meditations."  "  Take  care  that  thou  art  not  made  into  a 
Csesar,  that  thou  art  not  dyed  with  this  dye,  for  such 
things  happen.  Keep  thyself  then  simple,  good,  pure,  seri- 
ous, free  from  affectation,  a  friend  of  justice,  a  worshipper 
of  the  gods,  kind,  affectionate,  strenuous  in  all  proper  acts. 
Strive  to  continue  to  be  such  as  philosophy  wished  to  make 
thee.  Reverence  the  gods,  and  help  men."  He  encour- 
ages himself  in  this  noble  purpose  by  recalling  the  exam- 
ple of  Antoninus,  his  adoptive  father — his  constancy,  his 
evenness  in  all  things,  his  piety,  the  serenity  of  his  counte- 
nance, his  sweetness,  his  disregard  of  empty  fame,  and  his 
efforts  to  understand  things.  He  remembers  how  he  bore 
with  those  who  blamed  him  unjustly;  how  he  did  nothing 
in  a  hurry;  how  he  refused  to  listen  to  calumnies;  how  he 
was  content  with  little;  how  laborious,  patient,  and  firm 
he  was;  how  tolerant  of  those  who  opposed  his  opinions; 
how  eager  to  learn. 

Men  must  have  a  chief,  as  the  world  a  ruler,  the  herd 
a  leader;  but  this  chief  is  not  above  the  laws.  His  ideal 
is  that  "  of  a  polity  in  which  there  is  the  same  law  for  all, 
a  polity  administered  with  regard  to  equal  rights  and  equal 
freedom  of  speech,  and  the  idea  of  a  kingly  government 
which  respects  most  of  all  the  freedom  of  the  governed." 
He  abhors  whatever  is  arbitrary  or  unjust,  and  finds  noth- 
ing so  odious  as  the  character  of  a  tyrant,  which. he  couples 
with  such  epithets  as  black,  bestial,  animal,  stupid,  coun- 


X  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

terfeit,  scurrilous,  and  fraudulent.  He  admires  the  martyrs 
of  patriotism  who  have  been  the  victims  of  tyrannical  em- 
perors. His  knowledge  of  the  incredible  cruelties  of  some 
of  his  predecessors  on  the  imperial  throne  seemed  to  drive 
him  almost  to  excessive  leniency.  When  he  heard  of  the 
assassination  of  Avidius  Cassius,  who  at  the  head  of 
the  armies  of  Asia  had  revolted,  and  against  whom  he  was 
marching,  he  said  he  was  sorry  to  be  deprived  of  the  pleas- 
ure of  pardoning  him.  He  does  not  think  with  the  elder 
Stoics  that  to  be  virtuous  one  must  be  harsh  and  unbend- 
ing. "  In  mildness  and  goodness,"  he  says,  "  there  is  a 
higher  quality  of  manliness."  His  constant  aim  is  to  unite 
benignity  with  firmness.  He  does  not  wish  to  be  too 
severe  even  with  himself.  "  It  is  not  right  that  I  should 
afflict  myself,  I  who  have  never  willingly  given  pain  to  any 
one."  He  has  the  tenderness  and  delicacy  of  soul  of  a 
noble  woman.  There  is  a  large  benevolence  and  sympathy 
in  his  judgment  of  men,  even  when  they  are  perverse.  He 
is  ever  ready  to  be  of  help ;  he  is  full  of  aflfection  and  clem- 
ency. The  temple  he  built  he  dedicated  to  Goodness,  a 
divinity  hitherto  unknown  in  Rome.  "  Love  men,"  he 
says,  "  but  with  a  genuine  love."  "  Thou  dost  not  yet  love 
men  with  all  thy  heart."  "  It  is  not  enough  to  forgive; 
thou  must  love  those  who  do  thee  wrong."  The  only 
revenge  he  permits  is  to  make  one's  self  unlike  the  evil- 
doer. Correct,  if  thou  canst,  the  wicked;  if  not,  suffer 
them:  for  this  good-will  has  been  given  thee.  Be  like  the 
vine,  which  bears  its  fruit  and  asks  no  reward.  For  the 
rest,  to  be  a  blessing  to  others  is  to  be  a  friend  to  one's 
self.  When  there  is  question  of  doing  good,  one  should 
be  of  those  who  know  not  what  they  do — a  benefactor 
without  thinking  that  any  one  is  his  debtor.  What  may 
be  called  his  great  precept  is:  Love  mankind;  follow  God. 
He  has  no  weak  thoughts  about  his  own  happiness.  It  is 
well  enough  with  him    when  he  lives  in  accord  with  uni- 


MARCUS   AURELIUS  '  xi 

versal  law,  when  he  fulfils  his  duties  as  a  child  of  God  and 
a  member  of  the  whole  human  family.  Besides,  has  he  not 
a  sure  refuge  within  his  own  heart,  where  at  every  mo- 
ment he  may  live  with  the  thoughts  which  give  peace  to 
the  soul?  It  is  not  necessary  for  him  to  seek  the  seashore 
or  the  mountains  to  avoid  distractions,  for  it  is  always  in 
his  power  to  retire  into  himself,  and  to  find  there  the  things 
which  induce  the  tranquil  mind — those  brief  and  funda- 
mental principles  which,  whenever  he  recurs  to  them,  make 
him  calm  and  strong,  and  send  him  back  free  from  all  dis- 
content to  his  appointed  work.  Thus  he  lives  in  intimate 
communion  with  the  divinity  present  within  him,  and 
seeks  in  the  contemplation  of  the  laws  of  reason  protec- 
tion from  temptation,  discouragement,  and  weakness.  His 
favourite  virtues  are  justice  and  truth;  but  he  is  in  tune 
with  whatever  makes  for  magnanimity,  freedom,  strength, 
and  holiness  of  life.  He  cares  not  for  fame,  or  wealth,  or 
power,  or  pleasure.  Things  are  largely  what  we  think 
they  are,  and  if  we  but  understand  that  virtue  is  the  only 
essential  good,  we  shall  not  deem  poverty,  or  ill  health,  or 
pain,  or  death  an  evil.  One  may  be  a  divine  man  and  be 
unknown,  while  they  who  are  praised  are  praised,  for  the 
most  part,  ignorantly  or  by  the  false  and  the  fickle.  What, 
after  all,  is  man?  The  earth  is  but  a  point,  and  the  present 
in  which  alone  we  can  live  but  a  moment  lost  between 
two  infinities.  Fame  is  good  when  it  increases  the  will 
and  the  power  to  do  good,  else  it  is  naught,  mere  sound, 
and  emptiness.  The  clapping  of  hands  and  the  clapping 
of  tongues  are  vanities  in  which  none  but  the  childish  take 
delight.  The  emotion  with  which  he  touches  on  the  favour- 
ite theme  of  dull  and  gloomy  declaimers — the  hollowness 
and  evanescence  of  human  life  and  grandeur — imparts  a 
certain  charm  and  freshness  to  his  words:  "  Consider  the 
times  of  Vespasian!  Thou  wilt  see  all  these  things — peo- 
ple marrying,  bringing  up  children,  sick,  dying,  warring. 


301 


MARCUS  AURELIUS 


feasting,  trafficking,  cultivating  the  ground,  flattering,  ob- 
stinately arrogant,  suspecting,  plotting,  wishing  for  some- 
body to  die,  grumbling  about  the  present,  loving,  heaping 
up  treasure,  desiring  to  be  consuls  or  kings.  We  see,  then, 
that  life  of  these  people  no  longer  exists  at  all.  Again, 
go  to  the  times  of  Trajan.  All  is  again  the  same.  Their 
life,  too,  is  gone."  He  is  full  of  commonplaces  on  this  and 
kindred  subjects.  He  does  not  weary  of  them,  but  hunts 
for  arguments  and  comparisons  to  express  his  sense  of  the 
worthlessness  of  fame,  of  the  shortness  of  life,  and  the  van- 
ity of  all  things,  especially  of  those  which  attract  with  the 
bait  of  pleasure  or  terrify  by  pain,  or  are  noised  abroad  by 
the  voices  of  men.  What  belongs  to  the  body  is  a  stream, 
and  what  belongs  to  the  soul  is  a  dream  and  a  vapour.  All 
pass  quickly  and  are  buried  in  oblivion,  both  they  who 
remember  and  they  who  are  remembered.  As  he  grows 
older  his  sense  of  the  hopeless  sadness  of  life  grows  keener. 
He  is  still  resigned,  still  obedient  to  the  eternal  laws,  but 
he  advances  into  ever-deepening  gloom,  where  no  ray  of 
light  falls.  His  health  was  broken,  and  the  evils  which 
he  had  worn  himself  out  in  trying  to  overcome  were  break- 
ing forth  again  on  every  side.  In  the  midst  of  his  own 
family  he  was  unhappy.  His  wife,  though  she  has  doubt- 
less been  the  victim  of  calumny,  had  ceased  to  sympathize 
with  him,  and  hated  his  friends.  She  had  grown  weary 
of  his  philosophy  and  of  the  society  of  philosophers.  His 
austerity,  his  melancholy,  his  aversion  to  gaiety  and  splen- 
dour, his  grave  maxims,  were  offensive  to  her  pleasure- 
craving  nature.  Though  he  gave  no  heed  to  the  malicious 
rumours  about  her,  though  he  continued  to  love  her  as 
"  his  good  and  faithful  spouse,"  he  was  depressed  by  the 
knowledge  of  her  lack  of  heart  for  him.  Commodus,  his 
son  and  successor,  was  a  cause  of  still  more  poignant  sor- 
row than  Faustina.  He  was  a  mere  animal,  without  intel- 
ligence or  feeling,  and  though  but  seventeen  years  old  at 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  xiii 

the  time  of  his  father's  death,  he  had  already  manifested 
something  of  the  dispositions  which  made  him  later  one 
of  the  most  brutal  tyrants  by  whom  the  world  has  been 
cursed. 

The  emperor  has  been  blamed  for  not  disinheriting  him 
and  adopting  some  one  worthy  to  rule;  but  he  had  been 
proclaimed  Caesar  while  yet  a  boy,  and  by  the  time  his 
evil  nature  had  revealed  itself  Marcus  was  too  infirm  to 
take  so  decisive  a  step.  In  fact,  it  would  have  been  neces- 
sary to  murder  him,  for  had  he  been  left  alive  the  military 
party,  already  disgusted  with  the  rule  of  the  philosophers, 
as  shown  in  the  revolt  of  Avidius,  would  have  placed  him 
at  the  head  of  the  army,  and  plunged  the  empire  into  the 
horrors  of  civil  war.  And  then  what  is  more  natural  than 
that  a  father  should  believe  that  time  and  responsibility 
would  correct  the  faults  of  his  youthful  son?  Neverthe- 
less, Commodus  filled  him  with  forebodings  and  increased 
his  weight  of  care  and  pain,  which  already  was  too  heavy 
for  his  declining  strength.  His  friends  are  dead,  the  bar- 
barians are  in  arms,  the  corruption  of  morals  is  spreading, 
faith  in  the  gods  has  degenerated  into  gross  superstition, 
the  reforms  which  he  had  laboured  to  bring  about  are 
superficial  and  ineflfectual,  the  laws  had  been  made  better, 
but  the  Hfe  of  the  people  continued  to  become  more  false 
and  brutal,  the  army  was  losing  its  old-time  loyalty  and 
discipline — on  all  sides  the  signs  of  decadence  were  mani- 
fest. 

In  the  midst  of  a  falling  world,  in  the  presence  of  the 
northern  hordes,  menacing  destruction  and  ruin,  the  em- 
peror still  meditates,  still  studies  how  he  may  fortify  his 
soul.  He  does  not  despise  death,  but  waits  for  it,  content 
to  see  it  come.  It  will  deliver  him  from  the  sight  of  the 
corruption  by  which  he  is  surrounded.  His  departure  will 
not  be  from  men  who  have  the  same  principles  as  himself. 
"  Come  quick,  O  Death!  lest  perchance  I,  too,  should  for- 


xiv  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

get  myself."  There  will  not  be  lacking  those  who  are 
glad  to  see  him  go,  whose  lives  his  very  presence  con- 
demns: "  Let  us  at  last  breathe  freely,  being  relieved  from 
this  schoolmaster."  In  dying  he  will  go  away  from  those 
for  whom  he  strove,  prayed,  and  cared  so  much,  but  who 
nevertheless  wish  to  see  him  depart,  hoping  thereby  to  get 
some  little  advantage.  "  Why,  then,  should  he  desire  to 
stay  longer?  "  It  is  better  to  be  dead  than  to  live  as  they. 
Thou  art  in  the  grasp  of  fatal  laws;  be  not  like  a  pig  that 
squeals  and  struggles  when  it  is  sacrificed,  but  accept  with 
resignation  what  destiny  decrees.  Men  are  but  leaves 
which  the  wind  seizes  and  scatters  on  the  ground.  Thus 
weariness  of  life  grows  upon  him,  until  he  seems  to  be 
without  God  and  without  hope  in  the  world.  In  fact,  he 
had  neither  a  philosophy  nor  a  religion  which  can  satisfy 
the  human  heart.  He  was  never  able  to  settle  for  himself 
the  ultimate  problems,  the  foundations  of  all  ethical  prin- 
ciples— God,  immortality,  and  the  freedom  of  the  will. 
He  speaks  as  a  polytheist,  or  a  deist,  or  a  pantheist,  ac- 
cording to  his  mood.  At  Athens  he  founded  chairs  of  phi- 
losophy for  the  Platonic,  Stoic,  Peripatetic,  and  Epicurean 
schools,  giving  the  same  honour  to  the  atheist  as  to  the 
believer  in  the  gods.  At  times  he  seems  to  doubt  even 
that  to  which  he  holds  most  firmly.  His  grasp  of  specula- 
tive truth  is  feeble;  he  is  strong  and  helpful  only  as  a 
teacher  of  the  conduct  of  life.  Outside  of  this  we  find  in 
him  little  but  uncertainty  and  confusion.  His  moral  prin- 
ciples even  rest  on  no  foundation  of  dogma,  or,  if  on  any, 
it  is  that  of  cosmic  pantheism.  His  theology  is  as  vague 
and  variable  as  his  philosophy.  He  has  no  settled  con- 
victions concerning  the  soul  and  its  immortality.  When 
our  little  boat  comes  to  shore  and  we  get  out,  he  leaves  it 
undecided  whether  it  is  to  enter  on  another  life  or  simply 
to  lose  all  sensation,  to  cease  to  be.  His  thought  moves 
between  alternatives.     "  To  go  from  among  men,  if  there 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  XV 

are  gods,  is  not  a  thing  to  be  afraid  of,  for  the  gods  will 
not  involve  thee  in  evil;  but  if,  indeed,  they  do  not  exist, 
or  if  they  have  no  concern  about  human  aflfairs,  what  is  it 
to  me  to  live  in  a  universe  devoid  of  gods  or  devoid  of 
providence?  "  Then  he  reassures  himself  and  declares  that 
the  gods  do  exist,  and  that  they  do  care  for  human  things; 
at  least  they  place  the  avoidance  of  real  evils  in  a  man's 
power.  But  death  and  life,  honour  and  dishonour,  pain 
and  pleasure,  are  neither  good  nor  evil,  and  therefore  they 
happen  alike  to  all.  God  is  for  him  the  universal  reason, 
the  immutable  law  which  governs  all  things.  He  is  the 
whole,  he  is  nature  itself;  the  indwelling  force  which 
gives  order  and  beauty  to  the  universe.  How  this  divin- 
ity, this  inexorable  fate,  is  to  be  reconciled  with  Providence 
and  with  the  freedom  of  the  will,  or  be  made  an  object  of 
prayer  and  adoration,  he  does  not  attempt  to  explain. 
"  Out  of  the  universe  from  the  beginning  everything  which 
happens  has  been  apportioned  and  spun  out  to  thee." 
"  Accept  everything  which  happens,  even  if  it  seem  dis- 
agreeable, because  it  leads  to  this,  to  the  health  of  the 
universe  and  to  the  prosperity  and  felicity  of  Zeus."  Here 
he  joins  theism  and  pantheism,  but  by  Zeus  he  really  means 
the  universe,  the  universal  substance  of  which  the  individ- 
ual has  but  a  very  small  portion.  As  this  universal  sub- 
stance exists  necessarily,  from  it  by  fatal  laws  the  thread 
of  each  one's  destiny  is  spun.  "  Whatever  may  happen 
to  thee  was  prepared  for  thee  from  all  eternity,  and  the 
implication  of  causes  was  from  eternity  spinning  the  thread 
of  thy  being."  At  times  he  seems  to  regard  the  universe 
as  an  immense  animal,  "  one  living  being,  having  one  sub- 
stance and  one  soul."  But  it  is  perhaps  wrong  to  insist 
on  the  theoretical  views  of  a  man  who  had  little  intellectual 
curiosity,  and  cared  hardly  at  all  for  what  is  speculative. 
Still  it  is  impossible  not  to  recognise  that  he  himself  felt 
that  the  help  which  pantheism  can  offer  the  soul  is  inef- 
25 


xvi  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

factual.  Even  a  philosopher  can  derive  small  comfort  from 
the  thought  that  his  absorption  into  the  mass  of  matter  is 
for  the  interest  of  the  All,  which  contains  nothing  that  is 
not  for  its  advantage.  For  the  multitude  such  a  belief  is 
without  worth  or  meaning.  Stoic  morality  is  interesting 
chiefly  on  account  of  its  influence  upon  men  like  Epictetus 
and  Marcus  Aurelius,  who  found  in  it  a  source  of  strength 
in  the  midst  of  the  universal  corruption  in  which  Greco- 
Roman  civilization  was  disappearing.  It  could  never  have 
become  a  principle  of  social  regeneration.  The  fatalism 
on  which  it  rests  makes  enthusiasm  impossible.  Its  resig- 
nation is  despondency;  its  indifference,  hopelessness.  It 
lacks  vitality  and  joyousness.  There  is  in  it  no  love  of 
life,  no  belief  in  progress.  The  Stoic  sage  stands  alone, 
conscious  of  his  own  virtue,  in  the  midst  of  a  world  of  liars 
and  hypocrites.  He  is  not  angry  with  men;  he  is  kind 
even,  and  glad  to  be  of  help;  but,  in  truth,  he  has  little 
sympathy  with  them.  They  are  blind  and  perverse,  an 
infinite  number  of  fools,  who  are  deprived  of  that  which 
alone  can  make  life  bearable.  Hence  stoicism  necessarily 
fails.  It  can  neither  interest  nor  influence  the  mass  of  man- 
kind. It  is  dry  and  hard.  It  inspires  no  glad  emotion, 
no  immortal  hope.  It  does  not  thrill  the  soul  with  the  con- 
sciousness that  Life  is  lord  of  Death,  that  truth  and  love  lie 
at  the  heart  of  being,  that  whether  we  live  or  whether  we  die 
we  are  borne  in  the  arms  of  the  eternal  Father,  who  knows 
and  cares  for  each,  even  the  least  of  his  children.  It  can 
not  make  us  feel  that  the  loving  spirit  of  God  leads  us 
forth  into  the  land  of  righteousness,  that  we  are  reborn 
into  a  kingdom  of  peace  and  joy  and  blessedness.  It  can 
not  give  the  faith  which  overcomes  all  things,  and  guides 
us  through  the  portals  of  death  into  everlasting  life.  It 
has  no  words  of  pardon  and  comfort  for  sinners  who  re- 
pent. The  power  that  was  to  regenerate  the  world  was 
already  active  under  the  eyes  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  but  was 


MARCUS  AURELIUS  ^  xvii 

wholly  misunderstood  by  him.  He  alludes  to  the  Christian 
religion  once  only.  "  What  a  soul,"  he  writes,  "  that  is 
which  is  ready,  if  at  any  moment  it  must  be  separated  from 
the  body,  and  ready  either  to  be  extinguished,  or  dispersed, 
or  to  continue  to  exist;  but  so  that  this  readiness  comes 
from  a  man's  own  judgment,  not  from  mere  obstinacy,  as 
with  the  Christians!  "  From  his  point  of  view  the  mar- 
tyrs were  obdurate  fanatics  and  enemies  of  the  empire. 
Of  his  humanity  and  tolerance  there  can  be  no  doubt,  but, 
unfortunately,  there  can  be  just  as  little  doubt  that  he  per- 
secuted the  Christians,  or  at  the  least  permitted  them  to  be 
persecuted.  Intensely  moral  natures  are  apt  to  be  narrow 
and  rigid,  and  though  several  apologies  for  the  new  faith 
were  addressed  to  him,  he  either  never  read  them  or  was 
incapable  of  taking  a  world -view  so  utterly  opposed  to 
that  of  the  Stoic  philosophy.  They  who  are  placed  in  high 
stations  are  often  the  last  to  see  the  real  trend  of  things, 
for  the  possession  of  power,  like  the  possession  of  wealth 
or  the  indulgence  of  appetite,  seems  to  impede  insight; 
and  this  kind-hearted  and  spiritual-minded  man  had  not  a 
suspicion  of  the  true  nature  of  the  teaching  of  Christ.  It 
did  not  appeal  to  him  as  a  philosophy,  and  as  a  religion 
it  seemed  to  him  atheistic,  for  it  denied  the  existence  of 
the  gods  whom  he  revered  and  whose  worship  he  thought 
inseparable  from  loyalty  to  the  empire.  He  felt,  as  all 
the  thoughtful  minds  of  the  time  felt,  that  here  was  a  new 
spirit,  which,  if  it  should  prevail,  would  lead  to  the  over- 
throw of  the  old  civilization.  He  may  not  have  held  with 
Tacitus  that  the  Christians  were  convicted  of  hatred  of  the 
human  race,  but  he  believed  that  they  were  the  enemies 
of  the  Roman  state.  The  ancients  looked  upon  religion 
as  essentially  a  national  affair.  They  had  no  conception 
of  what  we  mean  by  liberty  of  conscience.  The  appeal 
from  Caesar  to  God  was  for  them  meaningless,  if  not  im- 
pious.   When  the  Christians  declared  that  they  were  ready 


xviii  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

to  obey  all  civil  and  military  laws,  but  reserved  to  them- 
selves freedom  to  worship  God  according  to  the  principles 
of  their  faith,  which  forbade  them  to  ofTer  sacrifice  to  idols, 
they  uttered  words  which  their  enemies  could  not  under- 
stand, words  which  Christians  themselves  in  later  ages 
have  often  been  unable  or  unwilling  to  understand. 

It  was  but  two  or  three  years  before  the  death  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  that  the  persecution  broke  forth  at  Lyons.  The 
emperor,  who  became  prematurely  old,  was  in  feeble  health 
and  surrounded  by  dangers  and  difficulties.  The  populace, 
eager  to  believe  the  Christians  guilty  of  the  most  atrocious 
crimes,  attributed  whatever  evils  befell  the  state  to  the 
anger  of  the  gods  against  their  contemners,  and  clamoured 
for  their  punishment.  The  emperor  yielded  to  the  popular 
fury,  and  the  church  of  Lyons  gave  to  the  world  an  ex- 
ample of  heroism  which,  if  ever  equalled,  has  never  been 
surpassed.  It  is  the  very  irony  of  fate  that  Marcus  Aurelius 
should  be  counted  among  the  persecutors  of  the  Christians, 
that  his  name  should  be  coupled  with  those  of  Nero  and 
Domitian.  It  is  doubtful  whether  he  himself  issued  a  new 
edict  or  simply  permitted  those  of  his  predecessors  to  be 
enforced.  Melito,  Bishop  of  Sardis,  who  addressed  a  letter 
to  the  emperor,  leads  us  to  suppose  that  he  had  sent  forth 
decrees  which  resulted  in  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Polycarp, 
Bishop  of  Smyrna,  ten  years  before  the  persecution  at 
Lyons. 

On  the  other  hand,  Tertullian,  writing  twenty  years  after 
the  death  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  affirms  in  the  most  positive 
manner  that  he  protected  the  Christians;  that  if  he  did  not 
expressly  revoke  the  edicts  of  former  emperors  against 
them,  he  at  least  rendered  them  ineffective  by  establishing 
penalties  against  their  accusers.  It  seems  probable  that 
he  was  not  an  active  persecutor;  but  he  certainly  lived  and 
died  with  an  utter  misconception  of  the  religion  which 
even  then  was  the  only  vital  force  left  to  a  perishing  world. 


MARCUS   AURELIUS  xix 

He  was,  nevertheless,  one  of  the  most  just  and  clement 
of  men.  There  is  little  genuine  wisdom  and  goodness  any- 
where, and  what  there  is  is  rarely  found  in  the  palaces  of 
kings  and  emperors.  Let  us  try  to  imagine  a  European 
ruler  or  an  American  President  of  our  day  who  should 
be  busy  with  the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  Marcus  Aure- 
lius.  The  mere  idea  seems  to  be  grotesque.  He  is  one  in 
whom  the  wise  have  recognised  the  genuine  goodness 
which  has  the  mark  of  universality,  which,  like  the  best 
culture,  lifts  its  possessor  above  party  and  country,  and 
makes  him  a  blessing  for  mankind  and  for  all  time. 

In  reading  his  "  Meditations "  we  are  always  in  the 
presence  of  a  magnanimous  man,  of  a  great  soul  whose 
kindliness  and  good  faith  we  can  not  doubt  unless  we  our- 
selves lack  love  and  truth.  He  will  remain  in  literature 
as  one  of  its  great  spiritual  forces.  He  has  the  vital  touch 
which  gives  immortality,  because  it  reveals  a  noble  and 
interesting  personality.  There  is  in  him  the  indefinable 
something  which  makes  writing  literature.  It  is  doubtless 
largely  sincerity,  the  perfect  truthfulness  which  makes  the 
word  the  mirror  of  the  man.  Much  of  what  he  says  is  said 
by  Seneca  and  Epictetus,  but  in  it  there  is  an  accent  of 
his  own  which  gives  it  a  fresh  meaning,  a  new  quality.  In 
these  disconnected  "  Thoughts,"  in  spite  of  repetitions,  of 
incorrectness,  and  obscurity,  there  breathes  a  soul  that  can 
not  die,  there  stands  forth  a  character  which  all  men  must 
deem  it  a  privilege  to  know.  The  book  is  alive  with  the 
high  and  rare  qualities  which  go  to  the  making  of  a  true 
and  noble  man.  In  the  little  casket  found  in  the  tent  on 
the  Danube  where  he  died  there  was  stored  a  life  which 
death  could  not  extinguish.  The  "  Meditations  "  with 
which  he  fortified  his  own  spirit  in  the  struggle  for  better 
and  higher  life  have  consoled  and  will  continue  to  console 
kindred  spirits  in  every  age;  for  whatever  his  doubts  and 
misgivings,  his  faith  in  duty  and  affection,  in  the  supreme 


XX  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

worth  of  righteousness,  was  never  shaken.  His  victories 
are  forgotten;  his  efforts  to  improve  the  laws,  to  spread 
enlightenment, to  help  the  orphans, are  hardly  remembered; 
but  fame,  for  which  he  cared  not  at  all,  is  his  forever,  and 
of  our  many  vanities  perhaps  the  least  vain  is  the  fame 
which  rests  on  words  that  never  lose  their  power  to  inspire, 
to  illumine,  and  to  strengthen.  The  whole  earth  is  the 
sepulchre  of  illustrious  men,  but  it  is  so  only  when  the 
greatness  of  soul  which  shone  forth  in  their  lives  is  kept  in 
imperishable  vigojir  in  some  immortal  book. 

John  Lancaster  Spalding. 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

Book  I i 

^    Book  II lo 

Book  III i6 

Book  IV 24 

Book  V 36 

Book  VI 47 

Book  VII 59 

Book  VIII 72 

Book  IX 84 

Book  X •       •  95 

Book  XI 107 

Book  XII 118 

zxi 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 

The  Fates Frontispiece 

From  a  painting  by  Paul  Thumann. 

Diogenes 66 

From  a  painting  by  Jean  L^on  G^rfime. 

The  Augurs 202 

From  a  painting  by  Jean  L£on  Gdrfime. 


MEDITATIONS 
Marcus  Aurelius        Frontispiece 

From  a  bust  in  Rome. 

Hadrian's  Tomb 78 


26 


i.lU 


MEDITATIONS 


BOOK  I 

FROM  my  grandfather  Verus*  [I  learned]  good  morals 
and  the  government  of  my  temper. 
From   the   reputation   and   remembrance  of   my 
father,^  modesty  and  manly  character. 

From  my  mother,^  piety  and  beneficence,  and  abstinence, 
not  only  from  evil  deeds,  but  even  from  evil  thoughts ;  and 
further,  simplicity  in  my  way  of  living,  far  removed  from  the 
habits  of  the  rich. 

From  my  great-grandfather,*  not  to  have  frequented  public 
schools,  and  to  have  had  good  teachers  at  home,  and  to  know 
that  on  such  things  a  man  should  spend  liberally. 

From  my  governor,  to  be  neither  of  the  green  nor  of  the 
blue  party  at  the  games  in  the  Circus,  nor  a  partizan  either 
of  the  Parmularius  or  the  Scutarius  at  the  gladiators'  fights ; 
from  him  too  I  learned  endurance  of  labour,  and  to  want 
little,  and  to  work  with  my  own  hands,  and  not  to  meddle 
with  other  people's  affairs,  and  not  to  be  ready  to  listen  to 
slander. 

From  Diognetus,**  not  to  busy  myself  about  trifling  things, 
and  not  to  give  credit  to  what  was  said  by  miracle-workers 
and  jugglers  about  incantations  and  the  driving  away  of 
daemons  and  such  things;  and  not  to  breed  quails  [for  fight- 
ing] ,  nor  to  give  myself  up  passionately  to  such  things ;  and 
to  endure  freedom  of  speech ;  and  to  have  become  intimate 
with  philosophy ;  and  to  have  been  a  hearer,  first  of  Bacchius, 


2  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

then  of  Tandasis  and  Marcianus;  and  to  have  written  dia- 
logues in  my  youth;  and  to  have  desired  a  plank  bed  and 
a  skin,  and  whatever  else  of  the  kind  belongs  to  the  Grecian 
discipline. 

From  Rusticus^  I  received  the  impression  that  my  char- 
acter required  improvement  and  discipline;  and  from  him  I 
learned  not  to  be  led  astray  to  sophistic  emulation,  nor  to 
writing  on  speculative  matters,  nor  to  delivering  little  horta- 
tory orations,  nor  to  showing  myself  off  as  a  man  who  prac- 
tises much  discipline,  or  does  benevolent  acts  in  order  to 
make  a  display ;  and  to  abstain  from  rhetoric,  and  poetry,  and 
fine  writing;  and  not  to  walk  about  in  the  house  in  my  out- 
door dress,  nor  to  do  other  things  of  the  kind;  and  to 
write  my  letters  with  simplicity,  like  the  letter  which  Rus- 
ticus  wrote  from  Sinuessa  to  my  mother;  and  with  respect 
to  those  who  have  offended  me  by  words,  or  done  me  wrong, 
to  be  easily  disposed  to  be  pacified  and  reconciled,  as  soon  as 
they  have  shown  a  readiness  to  be  reconciled;  and  to  read 
carefully,  and  not  to  be  satisfied  with  a  superficial  under- 
standing of  a  book;  nor  hastily  to  give  my  assent  to  those 
who  talk  overmuch ;  and  I  am  indebted  to  him  for  being  ac- 
quainted with  the  discourses  of  Epictetus,'^  which  he  com- 
municated to  me  out  of  his  own  collection. 

From  Apollonius^  I  learned  freedom  of  will  and  undevia- 
ting  steadiness  of  purpose;  and  to  look  to  nothing  else,  not 
even  for  a  moment,  except  to  reason ;  and  to  be  always  the 
same,  in  sharp  pains,  on  the  occasion  of  the  loss  of  a  child, 
and  in  long  illness ;  and  to  see  clearly  in  a  living  example  that 
the  same  man  can  be  both  most  resolute  and  yielding,  and 
not  peevish  in  giving  his  instruction;  and  to  have  had  be- 
fore my  eyes  a  man  who  clearly  considered  his  experience 
and  his  skill  in  expounding  philosophical  principles  as  the 
smallest  of  his  merits ;  and  from  him  I  learned  how  to  receive 
from  friends  what  are  esteemed  favours,  without  being  either 
humbled  by  them  or  letting  them  pass  unnoticed. 

From  Sextus,®  a  benevolent  disposition,  and  the  example 
of  a  family  governed  in  a  fatherly  manner,  and  the  idea  of 
living  conformably  to  nature;  and  gravity  without  affecta- 
tion, and  to  look  carefully  after  the  interests  of  friends,  and 
to  tolerate  ignorant  persons,  and  those  who  form  opinions 


MEDITATIONS  3 

without  consideration  :*^**  he  had  the  power  of  readily  accom- 
modating himself  to  all,  so  that  intercourse  with  him  was 
more  agreeable  than  any  flattery ;  and  at  the  same  time  he  was 
most  highly  venerated  by  those  who  associated  with  him: 
and  he  had  the  faculty  both  of  discovering  and  ordering,  in 
an  intelligent  and  methodical  way,  the  principles  necessary 
for  Irfe ;  and  he  never  showed  anger  or  any  other  passion,  but 
was  entirely  free  from  passion,  and  also  most  affectionate; 
and  he  could  express  approbation  without  noisy  display,  and 
he  possessed  much  knowledge  without  ostentation. 

From  Alexander^  ^  the  grammarian,  to  refrain  from  fault- 
finding, and  not  in  a  reproachful  way  to  chide  those  who 
uttered  any  barbarous  or  solecistic  or  strange-sounding  ex- 
pression; but  dexterously  to  introduce  the  very  expression 
which  ought  to  have  been  used,  and  in  the  way  of  answer  or 
giving  confirmation,  or  joining  in  an  inquiry  about  the  thing 
itself,  not  about  the  word,  or  by  some  other  fit  suggestion. 

From  Fronto^^  I  learned  to  observe  what  envy,  and 
duplicity,  and  hypocrisy  are  in  a  tyrant,  and  that  generally 
those  among  us  who  are  called  Patricians  are  rather  deficient 
in  paternal  affection. 

From  Alexander  the  Platonic,  not  frequently  nor  without 
necessity  to  say  to  any  one,  or  to  write  in  a  letter,  that  I  have 
no  leisure;  nor  continually  to  excuse  the  neglect  of  duties 
required  by  our  relation  to  those  with  whom  we  live,  by 
alleging  urgent  occupations. 

From  Catulus,^^  not  to  be  indifferent  when  a  friend  finds 
fault,  even  if  he  should  find  fault  without  reason,  but  to  try 
to  restore  him  to  his  usual  disposition;  and  to  be  ready  to 
speak  well  of  teachers,  as  it  is  reported  of  Domitius  and 
Athenodotus ;  and  to  love  my  children  truly. 

From  my  brother**  Severus,  to  love  my  kin,  and  to 
love  truth,  and  to  love  justice;  and  through  him  I  learned  to 
know  Thrasea,  Helvidius,  Cato,  Dion,  Brutus;**^  and  from 
him  I  received  the  idea  of  a  polity  in  which  there  is  the  same 
law  for  all,  a  polity  administered  with  regard  to  equal  rights 
and  equal  freedom  of  speech,  and  the  idea  of  a  kingly  govern- 
ment which  respects  most  of  all  the  freedom  of  the  governed ; 
I  learned  from  him  also  *  consistency  and  undeviating  stead- 
iness in  my  regard  for  philosophy;  and  a  disposition  to  do 


4  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

good,  and  to  give  to  others  readily,  and  to  cherish  good 
hopes,  and  to  beUeve  that  I  am  loved  by  my  friends ;  and  in 
him  I  observed  no  concealment  of  his  opinions  with  respect 
to  those  whom  he  condemned,  and  that  his  friends  had  no 
need  to  conjecture  what  he  wished  or  did  not  wish,  but  it  was 
quite  plain. 

From  Maximus*^  I  learned  self-government,  and  not  to 
be  led  aside  by  anything;  and  cheerfulness  in  all  circum- 
stances, as  well  as  in  illness;  and  a  just  admixture  in  the 
moral  character  of  sweetness  and  dignity,  and  to  do  what 
was  set  before  me  without  complaining.  I  observed  that 
everybody  believed  that  he  thought  as  he  spoke,  and  that  in 
all  that  he  did  he  never  had  any  bad  intention ;  and  he  never 
showed  amazement  and  surprise,  and  was  never  in  a  hurry, 
and  never  put  ofif  doing  a  thing,  nor  was  perplexed  nor  de- 
jected, nor  did  he  ever  laugh  to  disguise  his  vexation,  nor,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  he  ever  passionate  or  suspicious.  He 
was  accustomed  to  do  acts  of  beneficence,  and  was  ready  to 
forgive,  and  was  free  from  all  falsehood;  and  he  presented 
the  appearance  of  a  man  who  could  not  be  diverted  from 
right  rather  than  of  a  man  who  had  been  improved.  I  ob- 
served, too,  that  no  man  could  ever  think  that  he  was  de- 
spised by  Maximus,  or  ever  venture  to  think  himself  a  better 
man.  He  had  also  the  art  of  being  humorous  in  an  agree- 
able way.* 

In  my  father^''  I  observed  mildness  of  temper,  and  un- 
changeable resolution  in  the  things  which  he  had  determined 
lafter  due  deliberation;  and  no  vain  glory  in  those  things 
whichmencall  honours  ;anda  loveof  labour  and  perseverance; 
and  a  readiness  to  listen  to  those  who  had  anything  to  pro- 
pose for  the  common  weal ;  and  undeviating  firmness  in  giv- 
ing to  every  man  according  to  his  deserts ;  and  a  knowledge 
derived  from  experience  of  the  occasions  for  vigorous  action 
and  for  remission.  And  I  observed  that  he  had  overcome  all 
passion  for  boys;  and  he  considered  himself  no  more  than 
any  other  citizen ;  and  he  released  his  friends  from  all  obliga- 
tion to  sup  with  him  or  to  attend  him  of  necessity  when  he 
went  abroad,  and  those  who  had  failed  to  accompany  him,  by 
reason  of  any  urgent  circumstances,  always  found  him  the 
same.     I  observed  too  his  habit  of  careful  inquiry  in  all  mat- 


MEDITATIONS  .  5 

ters  of  deliberation,  and  his  persistency,  and  that  he  never 
stopped  his  investigation  through  being  satisfied  with  ap- 
pearances which  first  present  themselves;  and  that  his  dis- 
position was  to  keep  his  friends,  and  not  to  be  soon  tired  of 
them,  nor  yet  to  be  extravagant  in  his  affection;  and  to  be 
satisfied  on  all  occasions,  and  cheerful ;  and  to  foresee  things 
a  long  way  off,  and  to  provide  for  the  smallest  without  dis- 
play ;  and  to  check  immediately  popular  applause  and  all  flat- 
tery; and  to  be  ever  watchful  over  the  things  which  were 
necessary  for  the  administration  of  the  empire,  and  to  be  a 
good  manager  of  the  expenditure,  and  patiently  to  endure 
the  blame  which  he  got  for  such  conduct ;  and  he  was  neither 
superstitious  with  respect  to  the  gods,  nor  did  he  court  men 
by  gifts  or  by  trying  to  please  them,  or  by  flattering  the  popu- 
lace; but  he  showed  sobriety  and  firmness  in  all  things  and 
never  any  mean  thoughts  or  action,  nor  love  of  novelty. 
And  the  things  which  conduce  in  any  way  to  the  commodity 
of  life,  and  of  which  fortune  gives  an  abundant  supply,  he 
used  without  arrogance  and  without  excusing  himself;  so 
that  when  he  had  them,  he  enjoyed  them  without  affectation, 
and  when  he  had  them  not,  he  did  not  want  them.  No  one 
could  ever  say  of  him  that  he  was  either  a  sophist  or  a 
[home-bred]  flippant  slave  or  a  pedant;  but  every  one  ac- 
knowledged him  to  be  a  man  ripe,  perfect,  above  flattery,  able 
to  manage  his  own  and  other  men's  affairs.  Besides  this,  he 
honoured  those  who  were  true  philosophers,  and  he  did  not 
reproach  those  who  pretended  to  be  philosophers,  nor  yet 
was  he  easily  led  by  them.  He  was  also  easy  in  conversa- 
tion, and  he  made  himself  agreeable  without  any  offensive 
affectation.  He  took  a  reasonable  care  of  his  body's  health, 
not  as  one  who  was  greatly  attached  to  life,  nor  out  of  re- 
gard to  personal  appearance,  nor  yet  in  a  careless  way,  but 
so  that,  through  his  own  attention,  he  very  seldom  stood  in 
need  of  the  physician's  art,  or  of  medicine  or  external  appli- 
cations. He  was  most  ready  to  give  way  without  envy  to 
those  who  possessed  any  particular  faculty,  such  as  that  of 
eloquence,  or  knowledge  of  the  law  or  of  morals,  or  of  any- 
thing else;  and  he  gave  them  his  help,  that  each  might  enjoy 
reputation  according  to  his  deserts ;  and  he  always  acted  con- 
formably to  the  institutions  of  his  country,  without  showing 


6  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

any  affectation  of  doing  so.  Further,  he  was  not  fond  of 
change  nor  unsteady,  but  he  loved  to  stay  in  the  same  places, 
and  to  employ  himself  about  the  same  things;  and  after  his 
paroxysms  of  headache  he  came  immediately  fresh  and 
vigorous  to  his  usual  occupations.  His  secrets  were  not 
many,  but  very  few  and  very  rare,  and  these  only  about  pub- 
lic matters;  and  he  showed  prudence  and  economy  in  the 
exhibition  of  the  public  spectacles  and  the  construction  of 
public  buildings,  his  donations  to  the  people,  and  in  such 
things,  for  he  was  a  man  who  looked  to  what  ought  to  be 
done,  not  to  the  reputation  which  is  got  by  a  man's  acts.  He 
did  not  take  the  bath  at  unseasonable  hours ;  he  was  not  fond 
of  building  houses,  nor  curious  about  what  he  ate,  nor  about 
the  texture  and  colour  of  his  clothes,  nor  about  the  beauty 
of  his  slaves.^*  His  dress  came  from  Lorium,  his  villa  on 
the  coast,  and  from  Lanuvium  generally.  ^^  We  know  how 
he  behaved  to  the  toll-collector  at  Tusculum  who  asked  his 
pardon ;  and  such  was  all  his  behaviour.  There  was  in  him 
nothing  harsh,  nor  implacable,  nor  violent,  nor,  as  one  may 
say,  anything  carried  to  the  sweating  point ;  but  he  examined 
all  things  severally,  as  if  he  had  abundance  of  time,  and  with- 
out confusion,  in  an  orderly  way,  vigorously  and  consist- 
ently. And  that  might  be  applied  to  him  which  is  recorded 
of  Socrates,^"  that  he  was  able  both  to  abstain  from,  and  to 
enjoy,  those  things  which  many  are  too  weak  to  abstain  from, 
and  can  not  enjoy  without  excess.  But  to  be  strong  enough 
both  to  bear  the  one  and  to  be  S9ber  in  the  other  is  the  mark 
of  a  man  who  has  a  perfect  and  invincible  soul,  such  as  he 
showed  in  the  illness  of  Maximus. 

To  the  gods  I  am  indebted  for  having  good  grandfathers, 
good  parents,  a  good  sister,  good  teachers,  good  associates, 
good  kinsmen  and  friends,  nearly  everything  good.  Further, 
I  owe  it  to  the  gods  that  I  was  not  hurried  into  any  offence 
against  any  of  them,  though  I  had  a  disposition  which,  if 
opportunity  had  offered,  might  have  led  me  to  do  something 
of  this  kind ;  but,  through  their  favour,  there  never  was  such 
a  concurrence  of  circumstances  as  put  me  to  the  trial.  Further, 
I  am  thankful  to  the  gods  that  I  was  not  longer  brought  up 
with  my  grandfather's  concubine,  and  that  I  preserved  the 
flower  of  my  youth,  and  that  I  did  not  make  proof  of  my 


MEDITATIONS  f 

virility  before  the  proper  season,  but  even  deferred  the  time ; 
that  I  was  subjected  to  a  ruler  and  a  father  who  was  able  to 
take  away  all  pride  from  me,  and  to  bring  me  to  the  knowl- 
edge that  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to  live  in  a  palace  without 
wanting  either  guards  or  embroidered  dresses,  or  torches  and 
statues,  and  similar  show;  but  that  it  is  in  such  a  man's 
power  to  bring  himself  very  near  to  the  fashion  of  a  private 
person,  without  being  for  this  reason  either  meaner  in 
thought,  or  more  remiss  in  action,  with  respect  to  the  things 
which  must  be  done  for  the  public  interest  in  a  manner  that 
befits  a  ruler.  I  thank  the  gods  for  giving  me  such  a 
brother,^^  who  was  able  by  his  moral  character  to  rouse  me 
to  vigilance  over  myself,  and  who,  at  the  same  time,  pleased 
me  by  his  respect  and  affection;  that  my  children  have  not 
been  stupid  nor  deformed  in  body ;  that  I  did  not  make  more 
proficiency  in  rhetoric,  poetry,  and  the  other  studies,  in  which 
I  should  perhaps  have  been  completely  engaged,  if  I  had  seen 
that  I  was  making  progress  in  them;  that  I  made  haste  to 
place  those  who  brought  me  up  in  the  station  of  honour, 
which  they  seemed  to  desire,  without  putting  them  off  with 
hope  of  my  doing  it  some  time  afterward,  because 
they  were  then  still  young;  that  I  knew  Apollonius, 
Rusticus,  Maximus;  that  I  received  clear  and  fre- 
quent impressions  about  living  according  to  nature, 
and  what  kind  of  a  life  that  is,  so  that,  so  far 
as  depended  on  the  gods,  and  their  gifts,  and  help,  and 
inspirations,  nothing  hindered  me  from  forthwith  living  ac- 
cording to  nature,  though  I  still  fall  short  of  it  through  my 
own  fault,  and  through  not  observing  the  admonitions  of  the 
gods,  and,  I  may  almost  say,  their  direct  instructions;  that 
my  body  has  held  out  so  long  in  such  a  kind  of  life ;  that  I 
never  touched  either  Benedicta  or  Theodotus,  and  that,  after 
having  fallen  into  amatory  passions,  I  was  cured;  and, 
though  I  was  often  out  of  humour  with  Rusticus,  I  never  did 
anything  of  which  I  had  occasion  to  repent ;  that,  though  it 
was  my  mother's  fate  to  die  young,  she  spent  the  last  years  of 
her  life  with  me ;  that,  whenever  I  wished  to  help  any  man  in 
his  need,  or  on  any  other  occasion,  I  was  never  told  that  I 
had  not  the  means  of  doing  it ;  and  that  to  myself  the  same 
necessity  never  happened,  to  receive  anything  from  another ; 


8  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

that  I  have  such  a  wife,  so  obedient,  and  so  affection- 
ate, and  so  simple;  that  I  had  abundance  of  good 
masters  for  my  children ;  and  that  remedies  have  been  shown 
to  me  by  dreams,  both  others,  and  against  bloodspitting  and 
giddiness^^  ******  .  ^j^^j  ^-j^^^^  when  I  had  an  inclina- 
tion to  philosophy,  I  did  not  fall  into  the  hands  of  any 
sophist,  and  that  I  did  not  waste  my  time  on  writers  [of  his- 
tories], or  in  the  resolution  of  syllogisms,  or  occupy  myself 
about  the  investigation  of  appearances  in  the  heavens ;  for  all 
these  things  require  the  help  of  the  gods  and  fortune. 
Among  the  Quadi  at  the  Granua.^' 


NOTES 

*Annius  Verus  was  his  grandfather's  name.  There  is  no  verb  in  this 
section  connected  with  the  word  "from,"  nor  in  the  following  sections 
of  this  book;  and  it  is  not  quite  certain  what  verb  should  be  supplied. 
What  I  have  added  may  express  the  meaning  here,  though  there  are 
sections  which  it  will  not  fit.  If  he  does  not  mean  to  say  that  he  learned 
all  these  good  things  from  the  several  persons  whom  he  mentions,  he 
means  that  he  observed  certain  good  qualities  in  them,  or  received 
certain  benefits  from  them,  and  it  is  implied  that  he  was  the  better  for 
it,  or  at  least  might  have  been ;  for  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  understand 
Marcus  as  saying  that  he  possessed  all  the  virtues  which  he  observed  in 
his  kinsmen  and  teachers. 

'  His  father's  name  was  Annius  Verus. 

*  His  mother  was  Domitia  Calvilla,  named  also  Lucilla. 

*  Perhaps  his  mother's  grandfather,  Catilius  Severus. 

'  In  the  works  of  Justinus  there  is  printed  a  letter  to  one  Diognetus, 
whom  the  writer  names  "most  excellent."  He  was  a  Gentile,  but  he 
wished  very  much  to  know  what  the  religion  of  the  Christians  was, 
what  God  they  worshipped,  and  how  this  worship  made  them  despise 
the  world  and  death,  and  neither  believe  in  the  gods  of  the  Greeks  nor 
observe  the  superstition  of  the  Jews ;  and  what  was  this  love  to  one 
another  which  they  had,  and  why  this  new  kind  of  religion  was  intro- 
duced now  and  not  before.  My  friend  Mr.  Jenkins,  rector  of  Lyminge 
in  Kent,  has  suggested  to  me  that  this  Diognetus  may  have  been  the 
tutor  of  M.  Antoninus. 

*  Q.  Junius  Rusticus  was  a  Stoic  philosopher,  whom  Antoninus  valued 
highly,  and  often  took  his  advice. 

Antoninus  says,  rots  ^EittKrijTEioi^  vitoiJ.vr}).ia6tv,  which  must  not 
be  translated,  "the  writings  of  Epictetus,"  for  Epictetus  wrote  nothing. 
His  pupil  Arrian  has  preserved  for  us  all  that  we  know  of  Epictetus. 

'  Apollonius  of  Chalcis  came  to  Rome  in  the  time  of  Pius  to  be  Mar- 
cus's preceptor.    He  was  a  rigid  Stoic. 

*  Sextus  of  Chaeronea,  a  grandson  of  Plutarch,  or  nephew,  as  some 
say;  but  more  probably  a  grandson. 

"I  have  placed  in  some  passages  an  *,  which  indicates  corruption  in 
the  text  or  great  uncertainty  in  the  meaning." — Long's  Preface. 


MEDITATIONS  9 

"  Alexander  was  a  Grammaticus,  a  native  of  Phrygia.  He  wrote  a 
commentary  on  Homer ;  and  the  rhetorician  Aristides  wrote  a  panegyric 
on  Alexander  in  a  funeral  oration. 

"  M.  Cornelius  Fronto  was  a  rhetorician,  and  in  great  favour  with 
Marcus.     There  are  extant  various  letters  between  Marcus  and  Fronto. 

"  Cinna  Catulus,  a  Stoic  philosopher. 

"  The  word  brother  may  not  be  genuine.  Antoninus  had  no  brother. 
It  has  been  supposed  that  he  may  mean  some  cousin.  Schultz  in  his 
translation  omits  "brother,"  and  says  that  this  Severus  is  probably 
Claudius  Severus,  a  peripatetic. 

"We  know  from  Tacitus  (Annal.  xiii;  xvi,  21;  and  other  passages), 
who  Thrasea  and  Helvidius  were.  Plutarch  has  written  the  lives  of  the 
two  Catos,  and  of  Dion  and  Brutus.  Antoninus  probably  alludes  to 
Cato  of  Utica,  who  was  a  Stoic. 

"  Claudius  Maximus  was  a  Stoic  philosopher,  who  was  highly  es- 
teemed also  by  Antoninus  Pius,  Marcus'  predecessor.  The  character 
of  Maximus  is  that  of  a  perfect  man. 

"  He  means  his  adoptive  father,  his  predecessor,  the  Emperor  An- 
toninus Pius. 

"  This  passage  is  corrupt,  and  the  exact  meaning  is  uncertain. 

"  Lorium  was  a  villa  on  the  coast  north  of  Rome,  and  there  An- 
toninus was  brought  up,  and  he  died  there.     This  also  is  corrupt. 

"  Xenophon,  Memorab.  i,  3,  15. 

"  The  emperor  had  no  brother,  except  L.  Verus,  his  brother  by  adop- 
tion. 

"  This  is  corrupt. 

"  The  Quadi  lived  in  the  southern  part  of  Bohemia  and  Moravia ; 
and  Antoninus  made  a  campaign  against  them.  Granua  is  probably 
the  river  Graan,  which  flows  into  the  Danube. 

If  these  words  are  genuine,  Antoninus  may  have  written  this  first 
book  during  the  war  with  the  Quadi.  In  the  first  edition  of  Antoninus, 
and  in  the  older  editions,  the  first  three  sections  of  the  second  book 
make  the  conclusion  of  the  first  book.  Gataker  placed  them  at  the 
beginning  of  the  second  book. 


BOOK  II, 

BEGIN  the  morning  by  saying  to  thyself,  I  shall  meet 
with  the  busybody,  the  ungrateful,  arrogant,  deceitful, 
envious,  unsocial.  All  these  things  happen  to  them  by 
reason  of  their  ignorance  of  what  is  good  and  evil. 
But  I  who  have  seen  the  nature  of  the  good  that  it  is  beautiful, 
and  of  the  bad  that  it  is  ugly,  and  the  nature  of  him  who  does 
wrong,  that  it  is  akin  to  me,  not  [only]  of  the  same  blood  or 
seed,  but  that  it  participates  in  [the  same]  intelligence  and 
[the  same]  portion  of  the  divinity,  I  can  neither  be  injured 
by  any  of  them,  for  no  one  can  fix  on  me  what  is  ugly,  nor 
can  I  be  angry  with  my  kinsman,  nor  hate  him.  For  we  are 
made  for  co-operation,  like  feet,  like  hands,  like  eyelids,  like 
the  rows  of  the  upper  and  lower  teeth.^  To  act  against  one 
another  then  is  contrary  to  nature;  and  it  is  acting  against 
one  another  to  be  vexed  and  to  turn  away. 

Whatever  this  is  that  I  am,  it  is  a  little  flesh  and  breath, 
and  the  ruling  part.  Throw  away  thy  books ;  no  longer  dis- 
tract thyself:  it  is  not  allowed;  but  as  if  thou  wast  now 
dying,  despise  the  flesh ;  it  is  blood  and  bones  and  a  network, 
a  contexture  of  nerves,  veins,  and  arteries.  See  the  breath 
also,  what  kind  of  a  thing  it  is,  air,  and  not  dlways  the  same, 
but  every  moment  sent  out  and  again  sucked  in.  The  third 
then  is  the  ruling  part :  consider  thus :  Thou  art  an  old  man ; 
no  longer  let  this  be  a  slave,  no  longer  be  pulled  by  the  strings 
like  a  puppet  to  unsocial  movements,  no  longer  be  either  dis- 
satisfied with  thy  present  lot,  or  shrink  from  the  future. 

All  that  is  from  the  gods  is  full  of  providence.  That 
which  is  from  fortune  is  not  separated  from  nature  or  with- 
out an  interweaving  and  involution  with  the  things  which 
are  ordered  by  providence.  From  thence  all  things  flow ;  and 
there  is  besides  necessity,  and  that  which  is  for  the  advantage 
of  the  whole  universe,  of  which  thou  art  a  part.     But  that  is 


MEDITATIONS  1 1 

good  for  every  part  of  nature  which  the  nature  of  the  whole 
brings,  and  what  serves  to  maintain  this  nature.  Now  the 
universe  is  preserved,  as  by  the  changes  of  the  elements  so 
by  the  changes  of  things  compounded  of  the  elements.  Let 
these  principles  be  enough  for  thee,  let  them  always  be  fixed 
opinions.  But  cast  away  the  thirst  after  books,  that  thou 
mayest  not  die  murmuring,  but  cheerfully,  truly,  and  from 
thy  heart  thankful  to  the  gods. 

Remember  how  long  thou  hast  been  putting  off  these 
things,  and  how  often  thou  hast  received  an  opportunity 
from  the  gods,  and  yet  dost  not  use  it.  Thou  must  now  at 
last  perceive  of  what  universe  thou  art  a  part,  and  of  what 
administrator  of  the  universe  thy  existence  is  an  efflux,  and 
that  a  limit  of  time  is  fixed  for  thee,  which  if  thou  dost  not 
use  for  clearing  away  the  clouds  from  thy  mind,  it  will  go 
and  thou  wilt  go,  and  it  will  never  return. 

Every  moment  think  steadily  as  a  Roman  and  a  man  to 
do  what  thou  hast  in  hand  with  perfect  and  simple  dignity, 
and  feeling  of  affection,  and  freedom,  and  justice;  and  to 
give  thyself  relief  from  all  other  thoughts.  And  thou  wilt 
give  thyself  relief,  if  thou  doest  every  act  of  thy  life  as  if  it 
were  the  last,  laying  aside  all  carelessness  and  passionate  aver- 
sion from  the  commands  of  reason,  and  all  hypocrisy,  and 
self-love,  and  discontent  with  the  portion  which  has  been 
given  to  thee.  Thou  seest  how  few  the  things  are,  the  which 
if  a  man  lays  hold  of,  he  is  able  to  live  a  life  which  flows  in 
quiet,  and  is  like  the  existence  of  the  gods ;  for  the  gods  on 
their  part  will  require  nothing  more  from  him  who  observes 
these  things. 

Do  wrong^  to  thyself,  do  wrong  to  thyself,  my  soul;  but 
thou  wilt  no  longer  have  the  opportunity  of  honouring  thy- 
self. Every  man's  life  is  sufficient.*  But  thine  is  nearly 
finished,  though  thy  soul  reverences  not  itself,  but  places  thy 
felicity  in  the  souls  of  others. 

Do  the  things  external  which  fall  upon  thee,  distract  thee? 
Give  thyself  time  to  learn  something  new  and  good,  and 
cease  to  be  whirled  around.  But  then  thou  must  also  avoid 
being  carried  about  the  other  way.  For  those  too  are  triflers 
who  have  wearied  themselves  in  life  by  their  activity,  and 


12  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

yet  have  no  object  to  which  to  direct  every  moyement,  and, 
in  a  word,  all  their  thoughts. 

Through  not  observing  what  is  in  the  mind  of  another  a 
man  has  seldom  been  seen  to  be  unhappy ;  but  those  who  do 
not  observe  the  movements  of  their  own  minds  must  of 
necessity  be  unhappy. 

This  thou  must  always  bear  in  mind,  what  is  the  nature  of 
the  whole,  and  what  is  my  nature,  and  how  this  is  related  to 
that,  and  what  kind  of  a  part  it  is  of  what  kind  of  a  whole ; 
and  that  there  is  no  one  who  hinders  thee  from  always  doing 
and  saying  the  things  which  are  according  to  the  nature  of 
which  thou  art  a  part. 

Theophrastus,  in  his  comparison  of  bad  acts — such  a  com- 
parison as  one  would  make  in  accordance  with  the  common 
notions  of  mankind — says,  like  a  true  philosopher,  that  the 
oflfences  which  are  committed  through  desire  are  more 
blameable  than  those  which  are  committed  through  anger. 
For  he  who  is  excited  by  anger  seems  to  turn  away  from 
reason  with  a  certain  pain  and  unconscious  contraction ;  but 
he  who  offends  through  desire,  being  overpowered  by  pleas- 
ure, seems  to  be  in  a  manner  more  intemperate  and  more 
womanish  in  his  offences.  Rightly  then,  and  in  a  way 
worthy  of  philosophy,  he  said  that  the  offence  which  is  com- 
mitted with  pleasure  is  more  blameable  than  that  which  is 
committed  with  pain ;  and  on  the  whole  the  one  is  more  like 
a  person  who  has  been  first  wronged  and  through  pain  is 
compelled  to  be  angry;  but  the  other  is  moved  by  his  own 
impulse  to  do  wrong,  being  carried  towards  doing  something 
by  desire. 

Since  it  is  possible^  that  thou  mayest  depart  from  life 
this  very  moment,  regulate  every  act  and  thought  accord- 
ingly. But  to  go  away  from  among  men,  if  there  are  gods, 
is  not  a  thing  to  be  afraid  of,  for  the  gods  will  not  involve 
thee  in  evil ;  but  if  indeed  they  do  not  exist,  or  if  they  have  no 
concern  about  human  affairs,  what  is  it  to  me  to  live  in  a  uni- 
verse devoid  of  gods  or  devoid  of  providence  ?  But  in  truth 
they  do  exist,  and  they  do  care  for  human  things,  and  they 
have  put  all  the  means  in  man's  power  to  enable  him  not  to 
fall  into  real  evils.  And  as  to  the  rest,  if  there  was  anything 
evil,  they  would  have  provided  for  this  also,  that  it  should  be 


MEDITATIONS  1 3 

altogether  in  a  man's  power  not  to  fall  into  it.  Now  that 
which  does  not  make  a  man  worse,  how  can  it  make  a  man's 
life  worse  ?  But  neither  through  ignorance,  nor  having  the 
knowledge  but  not  the  power  to  guard  against  or  correct 
these  things,  is  it  possible  that  the  nature  of  the  universe  has 
overlooked  them ;  nor  is  it  possible  that  it  has  made  so  great 
a  mistake,  either  through  want  of  power  or  want  of  skill,  that 
good  and  evil  should  happen  indiscriminately  to  the  good 
and  the  bad.  But  death  certainly,  and  life,  honour  and  dis- 
honour, pain  and  pleasure,  all  these  things  equally  happen  to 
good  men  and  bad,  being  things  which  make  us  neither  better 
nor  worse.     Therefore  they  are  neither  good  nor  evil. 

How  quickly  all  things  disappear,  in  the  universe  the  bodies 
themselves,  and  in  time  the  remembrance  of  them;  what  is 
the  nature  of  all  sensible  things,  and  particularly  those  which 
attract  with  the  bait  of  pleasure  or  terrify  by  pain,  or  are 
noised  abroad  by  vapoury  fame;  how  worthless,  and  con- 
temptible, and  sordid,  and  perishable,  and  dead  they  are — all 
this  it  is  the  part  of  the  intellectual  faculty  to  observe.  To 
observe  too  who  these  are  whose  opinions  and  voices  give 
reputation;  what  death  is,  and  the  fact  that,  if  a  man  looks 
at  it  in  itself,  and  by  the  abstractive  power  of  reflection  re- 
solves into  their  parts  all  the  things  which  present  themselves 
to  the  imagination  in  it,  he  will  then  consider  it  to  be  nothing 
else  than  an  operation  of  nature ;  and  if  any  one  is  afraid  of 
an  operation  of  nature,  he  is  a  child.  This,  however,  is  not 
only  an  operation  of  nature,  but  it  is  also  a  thing  which  con- 
duces to  the  purposes  of  nature.  To  observe  too  how  man 
comes  near  to  the  deity,  and  by  what  part  of  him,  and  when 
this  part  of  man  is  so  disposed.* 

Nothing  is  more  wretched  than  a  man  who  traverses 
everything  in  a  round,  and  pries  into  the  things  beneath  the 
earth,  as  the  poet*  says,  and  seeks  by  conjecture  what  is  in 
the  minds  of  his  neighbours,  without  perceiving  that  it  is 
sufficient  to  attend  to  the  daemon  within  him,  and  to  rever- 
ence it  sincerely.  And  reverence  of  the  daemon  consists  in 
keeping  it  pure  from  passion  and  thoughtlessness,  and  dis- 
satisfaction with  what  comes  from  gods  and  men.  For  the 
things  from  the  gods  merit  veneration  for  their  excellence; 
and  the  things  from  men  should  be  dear  to  us  by  reason  of 


14  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

kinship;  and  sometimes  even,  in  a  manner,  they  move  our 
pity  by  reason  of  men's  ignorance  of  good  and  bad;  this 
defect  being  not  less  than  that  which  deprives  us  of  the 
power  of  distinguishing  things  that  are  white  and  black. 

Though  thou  shouldest  be  going  to  live  three  thousand 
years,  and  as  many  times  ten  thousand  years,  still  remember 
that  no  man  loses  any  other  life  than  this  which  he  now  lives, 
nor  lives  any  other  than  this  which  he  now  loses.  The 
longest  and  shortest  are  thus  brought  to  the  same.  For  the 
present  is  the  same  to  all,  though  that  which  perishes  is  not 
the  same  ;*  and  so  that  which  is  lost  appears  to  be  a  mere  mo- 
ment. For  a  man  can  not  lose  either  the  past  or  the  future : 
for  what  a  man  has  not,  how  can  any  one  take  this  from 
him?  These  two  things  then  thou  must  bear  in  mind;  the 
one,  that  all  things  from  eternity  are  of  like  forms  and  come 
round  in  a  circle,  and  that  it  makes  no  difference  whether 
a  man  shall  see  the  same  things  during  a  hundred  years  or 
two  hundred,  or  an  infinite  time;  and  the  second,  that  the 
longest  liver  and  he  who  will  die  soonest  lose  just  the  same. 
For  the  present  is  the  only  thing  of  which  a  man  can  be  de- 
prived, if  it  is  true  that  this  is  the  only  thing  which  he  has, 
and  that  a  man  can  not  lose  a  thing  if  he  has  it  not. 

Remember  that  all  is  opinion.  For  what  was  said  by  the 
Cynic  Monimus  is  manifest :  and  manifest  too  is  the  use  of 
what  was  said,  if  a  man  receives  what  may  be  got  out  of  it 
as  far  as  it  is  true. 

The  soul  of  man  does  violence  to  itself,  first  of  all,  when 
it  becomes  an  abscess  and,  as  it  were,  a  tumour  on  the  uni- 
verse, so  far  as  it  can.  For  to  be  vexed  at  anything  which 
happens  is  a  separation  of  ourselves  from  nature,  in  some 
part  of  which  the  natures  of  all  other  things  are  contained. 
In  the  next  place,  the  soul  does  violence  to  itself  when  it 
turns  away  from  any  man,  or  even  moves  towards  him  with 
the  intention  of  injuring,  such  as  are  the  souls  of  those  who 
are  angry.  In  the  third  place,  the  soul  does  violence  to  itself 
when  it  is  overpowered  by  pleasure  or  by  pain.  Fourthly, 
when  it  plays  a  part,  and  does  or  says  anything  insincerely  and 
untruly.  Fifthly,  when  it  allows  any  act  of  its  own  and  any 
movement  to  be  without  an  aim  and  does  anything  thought- 
lessly and  without  considering  what  it  is,  it  being  right  that 


MEDITATIONS  "    15 

even  the  smallest  things  be  done  with  reference  to  an  end; 
and  the  end  of  rational  animals  is  to  follow  the  reason  and 
the  law  of  the  most  ancient  city  and  polity. 

Of  human  life  the  time  is  a  point,  and  the  substance  is  in 
a  flux,  and  the  perception  dull,  and  the  composition  of  the 
whole  body  subject  to  putrefaction,  and  the  soul  a  whirl,  and 
fortune  hard  to  divine,  and  fame  a  thing  devoid  of  judg- 
ment. And,  to  say  all  in  a  word,  everything  which  belongs 
to  the  body  is  a  stream,  and  what  belongs  to  the  soul  is  a 
dream  and  vapour,  and  life  is  a  warfare  and  a  stranger's  so- 
journ, and  after-fame  is  oblivion.  What  then  is  that  which 
is  able  to  conduct  a  man  ?  One  thing  and  only  one,  philoso- 
phy. But  this  consists  in  keeping  the  daemon  within  a  man 
free  from  violence  and  unharmed,  superior  to  pains  and 
pleasures,  doing  nothing  without  a  purpose,  nor  yet  falsely 
and  with  hypocrisy,  not  feeling  the  need  of  another  man's 
doing  or  not  doing  anything ;  and  besides,  accepting  all  that 
happens,  and  all  that  is  allotted,  as  coming  from  thence, 
wherever  it  is,  from  whence  he  himself  came;  and,  finally, 
waiting  for  death  with  a  cheerful  mind,  as  being  nothing  else 
than  a  dissolution  of  the  elements  of  which  every  living  being 
is  compounded.  But  if  there  is  no  harm  to  the  elements 
themselves  in  each  continually  changing  into  another,  why 
should  a  man  have  any  apprehension  about  the  change  and 
dissolution  of  all  the  elements  ?  For  it  is  according  to  nature 
and  nothing  is  evil  which  is  according  to  nature. 

This  in  Camuntum." 


NOTES 

'  Xenophon,  Mem.  n,  3,  18. 

*  Perhaps  it  should  be  "thou  art  doing  violence  to  thyself,"  vftpi^etiy 
not  vPptt,s. 

*  Or  it  may  mean  "since  it  is  in  thy  power  to  depart ;"  which  gives 
a  meaning  somewhat  different. 

*  Pindar  in  the  "Theaetetus"  of  Plato. 

*  Carnuntum  was  a  town  of  Pannonia,  on  the  south  side  of  the  Dan- 
ube, about  thirty  miles  east  of  Vindobona  (Vienna).  Orosius  (vii,  15) 
and  Eutropius  (viii,  13)  say  that  Antoninus  remained  three  years  at 
Carnuntum  during  his  *rar  with  the  Marcomanni. 


BOOK  III 

WE  ought  to  consider  not  only  that  our  life  is  daily 
wasting  away  and  a  smaller  part  of  it  is  left,  but 
another  thing  also  should  be  taken  into  account, 
that  if  a  man  should  live  longer,  it  is  quite  un- 
certain whether  the  understanding  will  still  continue  suffi- 
cient for  the  comprehension  of  things,  and  retain  the  power 
of  contemplation  which  strives  to  acquire  the  knowledge  of 
the  divine  and  the  human.  For  if  he  shall  begin  to  fall  into 
dotage,  perspiration,  and  nutrition,  and  imagination,  and 
appetite,  and  whatever  else  there  is  of  the  kind,  will  not  fail ; 
but  the  power  of  making  use  of  ourselves,  and  filling  up  the 
measure  of  our  duty,  and  clearly  separating  all  appearances, 
and  considering  whether  a  man  should  now  depart  from  life, 
and  whatever  else  of  the  kind  absolutely  requires  a  dis- 
ciplined reason,  all  this  is  already  extinguished.  We  must 
make  haste  then,  not  only  because  we  are  daily  nearer  to 
death,  but  also  because  the  conception  of  things  and  the 
understanding  of  them  cease  first. 

We  ought  to  observe  also  that  even  the  things  which 
follow  after  the  things  which  are  produced  according  to 
nature  contain  something  pleasing  and  attractive.  For  in- 
stance, when  bread  is  baked  some  parts  are  split  at  the 
surface,  and  these  parts  which  thus  open,  and  have  a  certain 
fashion  contrary  to  the  purpose  of  the  baker's  art,  are  beauti- 
ful in  a  manner,  and  in  a  peculiar  way  excite  a  desire  for 
eating.  And  again,  figs,  when  they  are  quite  ripe,  gape 
open,  and  in  the  ripe  olives  the  very  circumstance  of  their 
being  near  to  rottenness  adds  a  peculiar  beauty  to  the  fruit. 
And  the  ears  of  corn  bending  down,  and  the  lion's  eyebrows, 
and  the  foam  which  flows  from  the  mouth  of  wild  boars,  and 
many  other  things — though  they  are  far  from  being  beauti- 
ful, if  a  man  should  examine  them  severally — still,  because 

i6 


MEDITATIONS  1 7 

they  are  consequent  upon  the  things  which  are  formed  by 
nature,  help  to  adorn  them,  and  they  please  the  mind ;  so  that 
if  a  man  should  have  a  feeling  and  deeper  insight  with  re- 
spect to  the  things  which  are  produced  in  the  universe,  there 
is  hardly  one  of  those  which  follow  by  way  of  conse- 
quence which  will  not  seem  to  him  to  be  in  a  manner  disposed 
so  as  to  give  pleasure.  And  so  he  will  see  even  the  real  gap- 
ing jaws  of  wild  beasts  with  no  less  pleasure  than  those 
which  painters  and  sculptors  show  by  imitation ;  and  in  an 
old  woman  and  an  old  man  he  will  be  able  to  see  a  certain 
maturity  and  comeliness;  and  the  attractive  loveliness  of 
young  persons  he  will  be  able  to  look  on  with  chaste  eyes; 
and  many  such  things  will  present  themselves,  not  pleasing 
to  every  man,  but  to  him  only  who  has  become  truly  familiar 
with  nature  and  her  works. 

Hippocrates,  after  curing  many  diseases  himself,  fell  sick 
and  died.  The  Chaldaei  foretold  the  deaths  of  many,  and 
then  fate  caught  them  too.  Alexander,  and  Pompeius,  and 
Caius  Caesar,  after  so  often  completely  destroying  whole 
cities,  and  in  battle  cutting  to  pieces  many  ten  thousands  of 
cavalry  and  infantry,  themselves  too  at  last  departed  from 
life.  Heraclitus,  after  so  many  speculations  on  the  confla- 
gration of  the  universe,  was  filled  with  water  internally  and 
died  smeared  all  over  with  mud.  And  lice  destroyed  De- 
mocritus;  and  other  lice  killed  Socrates.  What  means  all 
this?  Thou  hast  embarked,  thou  hast  made  the  voyage, 
thou  art  come  to  shore ;  get  out.  If  indeed  to  another  life, 
there  is  no  want  of  gods,  not  even  there.  But  if  to  a  state 
without  sensation,  thou  wilt  cease  to  be  held  by  pains  and 
pleasures,  and  to  be  a  slave  to  the  vessel,  which  is  as  much 
inferior  as  that  which  serves  it  is  superior  :*  for  the  one  is 
intelligence  and  deity ;  the  other  is  earth  and  corruption. 

Do  not  waste  the  remainder  of  thy  life  in  thoughts  about 
others,  when  thou  dost  not  refer  thy  thoughts  to  some  object 
of  common  utility.  For  thou  losest  the  opportunity  of  do- 
ing something  else  when  thou  hast  such  thoughts  as  these, 
What  is  such  a  person  doing,  and  why,  and  what  is  he  say- 
ing, and  what  is  he  thinking  of,  and  what  is  he  contriving, 
and  whatever  else  of  the  kind  makes  us  wander  away  from 
the  observation  of  our  own  ruling  power.     We  ought  then 


1 8  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

to  check  in  the  series  of  our  thoughts  everything  that  is 
without  a  purpose  and  useless,  but  most  of  all  the  over  curi- 
ous feeling  and  the  malignant;  and  a  man  should  use  him- 
self to  think  of  those  things  only  about  which  if  one  should 
suddenly  ask,  What  hast  thou  now  in  thy  thoughts?  with 
perfect  openness  thou  mightest  immediately  answer,  This  or 
That ;  so  that  from  thy  words  it  should  be  plain  that  every- 
thing in  thee  is  simple  and  benevolent,  and  such  as  befits  a 
social  animal,  and  one  that  cares  not  for  thoughts  about 
pleasure  or  sensual  enjoyments  at  all,  nor  has  any  rivalry,  or 
envy  and  suspicion,  or  anything  else  for  which  thou  wouldst 
blush  if  thou  shouldst  say  that  thou  hadst  it  in  thy  mind.  For 
the  man  who  is  such  and  no  longer  delays  being  among  the 
number  of  the  best,  is  like  a  priest  and  minister  of  the 
gods,  using  too  the  [deity]  which  is  planted  within  him, 
which  makes  the  man  uncontaminated  by  pleasure,  un- 
harmed by  any  pain,  untouched  by  any  insult,  feel- 
ing no  wrong,  a  fighter  in  the  noblest  fight,  one 
who  can  not  be  overpowered  by  any  passion,  dyed 
deep  with  justice,  accepting  with  all  his  soul  everything 
which  happens  and  is  assigned  to  him  as  his  portion;  and 
not  often,  nor  yet  without  great  necessity  and  for  the  general 
interest,  imagining  what  another  says,  or  does,  or  thinks. 
For  it  is  only  what  belongs  to  himself  that  he  makes  the  mat- 
ter for  his  activity;  and  he  constantly  thinks  of  that  which 
is  allotted  to  himself  out  of  the  sum  total  of  things,  and  he 
makes  his  own  acts  fair,  and  he  is  persuaded  that  his  own 
portion  is  good.  For  the  lot  which  is  assigned  to  each  man 
is  carried  along  with  him  and  carries  him  along  with  it.* 
And  he  remembers  also  that  every  rational  animal  is  his  kins- 
man, and  that  to  care  for  all  men  is  according  to  man's  na- 
ture ;  and  a  man  should  hold  on  to  the  opinion  not  of  all,  but 
of  those  only  who  confessedly  live  according  to  nature.  But 
as  to  those  who  live  not  so,  he  always  bears  in  mind  what  kind 
of  men  they  are  both  at  home  and  from  home,  both  by  night 
and  by  day,  and  what  they  are,  and  with  what  men  they  live 
an  impure  life.  Accordingly,  he  does  not  value  at  all  the 
praise  which  comes  from  such  men,  since  they  are  not  even 
satisfied  with  themselves. 

Labour  not  unwillingly,  nor  without  regard  to  the  com- 


MEDITATIONS  1 9 

mon  interest,  nor  without  due  consideration,  nor  with  dis- 
traction ;  nor  let  studied  ornament  set  off  thy  thoughts,  and 
be  not  either  a  man  of  many  words,  or  busy  about  too  many 
things.  And  further,  let  the  deity  which  is  in  thee  be  the 
guardian  of  a  living  being,  manly  and  of  ripe  age,  and  en- 
gaged in  matter  political,  and  a  Roman,  and  a  ruler,  who  has 
taken  his  post  like  a  man  waiting  for  the  signal  which  sum- 
mons him  from  life,  and  ready  to  go,  having  need  neither 
of  oath  nor  of  any  man's  testimony.  Be  cheerful  also,  and- 
seek  not  external  help  nor  the  tranquillity  which  others  give. 
A  man  then  must  stand  erect,  not  be  kept  erect  by  others. 

If  thou  findest  in  human  life  anything  better  than  justice, 
truth,  temperance,  fortitude,  and,  in  a  word,  anything  better 
than  thy  own  mind's  self-satisfaction  in  the  things  which  it 
enables  thee  to  do  according  to  right  reason,  and  in  the  con- 
dition that  is  assigned  to  thee  without  thy  own  choice ;  if,  I 
say,  thou  seest  anything  better  than  this,  turn  to  it  with  all 
thy  soul,  and  enjoy  that  which  thou  hast  found  to  be  the  best. 
But  if  nothing  appears  to  be  better  than  the  deity  which  is 
planted  in  thee,  which  has  subjected  to  itself  all  thy  appetites, 
and  carefully  examines  all  the  impressions,  and,  as  Socrates 
said,  has  detached  itself  from  the  persuasions  of  sense,  and 
has  submitted  itself  to  the  gods,  and  cares  for  mankind;  if 
thou  findest  everything  else  smaller  and  of  less  value  than 
this,  give  place  to  nothing  else,  for  if  thou  dost  once  diverge 
and  incline  to  it,  thou  wilt  no  longer  without  distraction  be 
able  to  give  the  preference  to  that  good  thing  which  is  thy 
proper  possession  and  thy  own  for  it  is  not  right  that  any- 
thing of  any  other  kind,  such  as  praise  from  the  many,  or 
power,  or  enjoyment  of  pleasure,  should  come  into  competi- 
tion with  that  which  is  rationally  and  politically  [or,  prac- 
tically] good.  All  these  things,  even  though  they  may  seem 
to  adapt  themselves  [to  the  better  things]  in  a  small  degree, 
obtain  the  superiority  all  at  once,  and  carry  us  away.  But 
do  thou,  I  say,  simply  and  freely  choose  the  better,  and  hold 
to  it. — But  that  which  is  useful  is  the  better. — Well  then,  if 
it  is  useful  to  thee  as  a  rational  being,  keep  to  it ;  but  if  it  is 
only  useful  to  thee  as  an  animal,  say  so,  and  maintain  thy 
judgment  without  arrogance:  only  take  care  that  thou  mak- 
est  the  inquiry  by  a  sure  method. 


2d  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

Never  value  anything  as  profitable  to  thyself  which  shall 
compel  thee  to  break  thy  promise,  to  lose  thy  self-respect,  to 
hate  any  man,  to  suspect,  to  curse,  to  act  the  hypocrite,  to 
desire  anything  which  needs  walls  and  curtains :  for  he  who 
has  preferred  to  everything  else  his  own  intelligence,  and 
daemon,  and  the  worship  of  its  excellence,  acts  no  tragic 
part,  does  not  groan,  will  not  need  either  solitude  or  much 
company ;  and,  what  is  chief  of  all,  he  will  live  without  either 
pursuing  or  flying  from  [death] ;  but  whether  for  a  longer 
or  a  shorter  time  he  shall  have  the  soul  inclosed  in  the  body, 
he  cares  not  at  all :  for  even  if  he  must  depart  immediately, 
he  will  go  as  readily  as  if  he  were  going  to  do  anything  else 
which  can  be  done  with  decency  and  order;  taking  care  of 
this  only  all  through  life,  that  his  thoughts  turn  not  away 
from  anything  which  belongs  to  an  intelligent  animal  and  a 
member  of  a  civil  community. 

In  the  mind  of  one  who  is  chastened  and  purified  thou 
wilt  find  no  corrupt  matter,  nor  impurity,  nor  any  sore 
skinned  over.  Nor  is  his  life  incomplete  when  fate  over- 
takes him,  as  one  may  say  of  an  actor  who  leaves  the  stage 
before  ending  and  finishing  the  play.  Besides,  there  is  in 
him  nothing  servile,  nor  affected,  nor  too  closely  bound  [to 
other  things],  nor  yet  detached  [from  other  things],  noth- 
ing worthy  of  blame,  nothing  which  seeks  a  hiding-place. 

Reverence  the  faculty  which  produces  opinion.  On  this 
faculty  it  entirely  depends  whether  there  shall  exist  in  thy 
ruling  part  any  opinion  inconsistent  with  nature  and  the  con- 
stitution of  the  rational  animal.  And  this  faculty  promises 
freedom  from  hasty  judgment,  and  friendship  towards  men, 
and  obedience  to  the  gods. 

Throwing  away  then  all  things,  hold  to  these  only  which 
are  few ;  and  besides  bear  in  mind  that  every  man  lives  only 
this  present  time,  which  is  an  indivisible  point,  and  that  all 
the  rest  of  his  life  is  either  past  or  it  is  uncertain.  Short 
then  is  the  time  which  every  man  lives,  and  small  the  nook  of 
the  earth  where  he  lives ;  and  short  too  the  longest  posthu- 
mous fame,  and  even  this  only  continued  by  a  succession  of 
poor  human  beings,  who  will  very  soon  die,  and  who  know 
not  even  themselves,  much  less  him  who  died  long  ago. 

To  the  aids  which  have  been  mentioned  let  this  one  still 


MEDITATIONS  21 

be  added: — Make  for  thyself  a  definition  or  description  of 
the  thing  which  is  presented  to  thee,  so  as  to  see  distinctly 
what  kind  of  a  thing  it  is  in  its  substance,  in  its  nudity,  in  its 
complete  entirety,  and  tell  thyself  its  proper  name,  and  the 
names  of  the  things  of  which  it  has  been  compounded,  and 
into  which  it  will  be  resolved.  For  nothing  is  so  productive 
of  elevation  of  mind  as  to  be  able  to  examine  methodically 
and  truly  every  object  which  is  presented  to  thee  in  life,  and 
always  to  look  at  things  so  as  to  see  at  the  same  time  what 
kind  of  universe  this  is,  and  what  kind  of  use  everything 
performs  in  it,  and  what  value  everything  has  with  reference 
to  the  whole,  and  what  with  reference  to  man,  who  is  a  citi- 
zen of  the  highest  city,  of  which  all  other  cities  are  like  fam- 
ilies; what  each  thing  is,  and  of  what  it  is  composed,  and 
how  long  it  is  the  nature  of  this  thing  to  endure  which  now 
makes  an  impression  on  me,  and  what  virtue  I  have  need  of 
with  respect  to  it,  such  as  gentleness,  manliness,  truth,  fidel- 
ity, simplicity,  contentment,  and  the  rest.  Wherefore,  on 
every  occasion  a  man  should  say :  this  comes  from  god ;  and 
this  is  according  to  the  apportionment*  and  spinning  of  the 
thread  of  destiny,  or  similar  coincidence  and  chance;  and 
this  is  from  one  of  the  same  stock,  and  a  kinsman  and  partner, 
one  who  knows  not  however  what  is  according  to  his  nature. 
But  I  know;  for  this  reason  I  behave  towards  him,  accord- 
ing to  the  natural  law  of  fellowship,  with  benevolence  and 
justice.  At  the  same  time  however  in  things  indifferent^  I 
attempt  to  ascertain  the  value  of  each. 

If  thou  workest  at  that  which  is  before  thee,  following 
right  reason  seriously,  vigorously,  calmly,  without  allowing 
anything  else  to  distract  thee,  but  keeping  thy  divine  part 
pure,  as  if  thou  shouldst  be  bound  to  give  it  back  immedi- 
ately; if  thou  boldest  to  this,  expecting  nothing,  fearing 
nothing,  but  satisfied  with  thy  present  activity  according  to 
nature,  and  with  heroic  truth  in  every  word  and  sound  which 
thou  utterest,  thou  wilt  live  happy.  And  there  is  no  man 
who  is  able  to  prevent  this. 

As  physicians  have  always  their  instruments  and  knives 
ready  for  cases  which  suddenly  require  their  skill,  so  do  thou 
have  principles  ready  for  the  understanding  of  things  divine 
and  human,  and  for  doing  everything,  even  the  smallest,  with 


22  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

a  recollection  of  the  bond  which  unites  the  divine  and  human 
to  one  another.  For  neither  wilt  thou  do  anything  well 
which  pertains  to  man  without  at  the  same  time  having  a  ref- 
erence to  things  divine ;  nor  the  contrary. 

No  longer  wander  at  hazard;  for  neither  wilt  thou  read 
thy  own  memoirs,^  nor  the  acts  of  the  ancient  Romans  and 
Hellenes,  and  the  selections  from  books  which  thou  wast  re- 
serving for  thy  old  age.^  Hasten  then  to  the  end  which 
thou  hast  before  thee,  and,  throwing  away  idle  hopes,  come 
to  thy  own  aid,  if  thou  carest  at  all  for  thyself,  while  it  is  in 
thy  power. 

They  know  not  how  many  things  are  signified  by  the 
words  stealing,  sowing,  buying,  keeping  quiet,  seeing  what 
ought  to  be  done ;  for  this  is  not  effected  by  the  eyes,  but  by 
another  kind  of  vision. 

Body,  soul,  intelligence:  to  the  body  belongs  sensations, 
to  the  soul  appetites,  to  the  intelligence  principles.  To  re- 
ceive the  impressions  of  forms  by  means  of  appearances  be- 
longs even  to  animals;  to  be  pulled  by  the  strings  of  desire 
belongs  both  to  wild  beasts  and  to  men  who  have  made 
themselves  into  women,  and  to  a  Phalaris  and  a  Nero :  and  to 
have  the  intelligence  that  guides  to  the  things  which  appear 
suitable  belongs  also  to  those  who  do  not  believe  in  the  gods, 
and  who  betray  their  country,  and  do  their  impure  deeds 
when  they  have  shut  the  doors.  If  then  everything  else  is 
common  to  all  that  I  have  mentioned,  there  remains  that 
which  is  peculiar  to  the  good  man,  to  be  pleased  and  content 
with  what  happens,  and  with  the  thread  which  is  spun  for 
him;  and  not  to  defile  the  divinity  which  is  planted  in  his 
breast,  nor  disturb  it  by  a  crowd  of  images,  but  to  preserve  it 
tranquil,  following  it  obediently  as  a  god,  neither  saying  any- 
thing contrary  to  the  truth,  nor  doing  anything  contrary  to 
justice.  And  if  all  men  refuse  to  believe  that  he  lives  a  sim- 
ple, modest,  and  contented  life,  he  is  neither  angry  with  any 
of  them,  nor  does  he  deviate  from  the  way  which  leads  to  the 
end  of  life,  to  which  a  man  ought  to  come  pure,  tranquil, 
ready  to  depart,  and  without  any  compulsion,  perfectly  re- 
conciled to  his  lot. 


MEDITATIONS  23 

NOTES 

*  "Est  et  horum  quae  media  appellamus  grande  discrimen." — Seneca 
Ep.  82. 

^'Titofivrjfiara:  or  memoranda,  notes  and  the  like. 

'Compare  Pronto,  11,  9;  a  letter  of  Marcus  to  Fronto,  who  was  then 
consul :  "Feci  tamen  mihi  per  hos  dies  excerpta  ex  libris  sexaginta  in 
quinque  tomis."    But  he  says  some  of  them  were  small  books. 


«7 


BOOK  IV 

THAT  which  rules  within,  when  it  is  according  to  na- 
ture, is  so  affected  with  respect  to  the  events  which 
happen,  that  it  always  easily  adapts  itself  to  that 
which  is  possible  and  is  presented  to  it.  For  it  re- 
quires no  definite  material,  but  it  moves  toward  its  purpose, 
under  certain  conditions  however;  and  it  rpakes  a  material 
for  itself  out  of  that  which  opposes  it,  as  fire  lays  hold  of 
what  falls  into  it,  by  which  a  small  light  would  have  been 
extinguished :  but  when  the  fire  is  strong,  it  soon  appropri- 
ates to  itself  the  matter  which  is  heaped  upon  it,  and  con- 
sumes it,  and  rises  higher  by  means  of  this  very  material. 

Let  no  act  be  done  without  a  purpose,  nor  otherwise  than 
according  to  the  perfect  principles  of  art. 

Men  seek  retreats  for  themselves,  houses  in  the  country, 
sea-shores,  and  mountains;  and  thou  too  art  wont  to  desire 
such  things  very  much.  But  this  is  altogether  a  mark  of  the 
most  common  sort  of  men,  for  it  is  in  thy  power,  whenever 
thou  shalt  choose,  to  retire  into  thyself.  For  nowhere  either 
with  more  quiet  or  more  freedom  from  trouble  does  a  man 
retire  than  into  his  own  soul,  particularly  when  he  has  within 
him  such  thoughts  that  by  looking  into  them  he  is  immedi- 
ately in  perfect  tranquillity ;  and  I  affirm  that  tranquillity  is 
nothing  else  than  the  good  ordering  of  the  mind.  Con- 
stantly then  give  to  thyself  this  retreat,  and  renew  thyself; 
and  let  thy  principles  be  brief  and  fundamental,  which,  as 
soon  as  thou  shalt  recur  to  them,  will  be  sufficient  to  cleanse 
the  soul  completely,  and  to  send  thee  back  free  from  all  dis- 
content with  the  things  to  which  thou  returnest.  For  with 
what  art  thou  discontented?  With  the  badness  of  men? 
Recall  to  thy  mind  this  conclusion,  that  rational  animals  exist 
for  one  another,  and  that  to  endure  is  a  part  of  justice,  and 
that  men  do  wrong  involuntarily;   and  consider  how  many 

34 


MEDITATIONS  25 

already,  after  mutual  enmity,  suspicion,  hatred,  and  fighting, 
have  been  stretched  dead,  reduced  to  ashes ;  and  be  quiet  at 
last. — But  perhaps  thou  art  dissatisfied  with  that  which  is 
assigned  to  thee  out  of  the  universe. — Recall  to  thy  recol- 
lection this  alternative;  either  there  is  providence  or  atoms 
[fortuitous  concurrence  of  things]  ;  or  remember  the  argu- 
ments by  which  it  has  been  proved  that  the  world  is  a  kind  of 
political  community  [and  be  quiet  at  last]. — But  perhaps 
corporeal  things  will  still  fasten  upon  thee. — Consider  then 
further  that  the  mind  mingles  not  with  the  breath,  whether 
moving  gently  or  violently,  when  it  has  once  drawn  itself 
apart  and  discovered  its  own  power,  and  think  also  of  all 
that  thou  hast  heard  and  assented  to  about  pain  and  pleasure 
.[and  be  quiet  at  last]. — But  perhaps  the  desire  of  the 
thing  called  fame  will  torment  thee. — See  how  soon  every- 
thing is  forgotten,  and  look  at  the  chaos  of  infinite  time  on 
each  side  of  [the  present],  and  the  emptiness  of  applause, 
and  the  changeableness  and  want  of  judgment  in  those  who 
pretend  to  give  praise,  and  the  narrowness  of  the  space 
within  which  it  is  circumscribed  [and  be  quiet  at  last] .  For 
the  whole  earth  is  a  point,  and  how  small  a  nook  in  it  is  this 
thy  dwelling,  and  how  few  are  there  in  it,  and  what  kind  of 
people  are  they  who  will  praise  thee. 

This  then  remains:  Remember  to  retire  into  this  little 
territory  of  thy  own,*  and  above  all  do  not  distract  or  strain 
thyself,  but  be  free,  and  look  at  things  as  a  man,  as  a  human 
being,  as  a  citizen,  as  a  mortal.  But  among  the  things  read- 
iest to  thy  hand  to  which  thou  shalt  turn,  let  there  be  these, 
which  are  two.  One  is  that  things  do  not  touch  the  soul, 
for  they  are  external  and  remain  immovable;  but  our  per- 
turbations come  only  from  the  opinion  which  is  within. 
The  other  is  that  all  these  things,  which  thou  seest,  change 
immediately  and  will  no  longer  be;  and  constantly  bear  in 
mind  how  many  of  these  changes  thou  hast  already  wit- 
nessed.    The  universe  is  transformation :  life  is  opinion. 

If  our  intellectual  part  is  common,  the  reason  also,  in  re- 
spect of  which  we  are  rational  beings,  is  common :  if  this  is 
so,  common  also  is  the  reason  which  commands  us  what  to 
do,  and  what  not  to  do ;  if  this  is  so,  there  is  a  common  law 
also ;  if  this  is  so,  we  are  fellow-citizens ;   if  this  is  so,  we 


26  MARCUB  AURELIUS 

are  members  of  some  political  community;  if  this  is  so,  tlie 
world  is  in  a  manner  a  state.^  For  of  what  other  common 
political  community  will  any  one  say  that  the  whole  human 
race  are  members?  And  from  thence,  from  this  common 
political  community  comes  also  our  very  intellectual  faculty 
and  reasoning  faculty,  and  our  capacity  for  law ;  or  whence 
do  they  come  ?  For  as  my  earthly  part  is  a  portion  given  to 
me  from  certain  earth,  and  that  which  is  watery  from  an- 
other element,  and  that  which  is  hot  and  fiery  from  some 
peculiar  source  (  for  nothing  comes  out  of  that  which  is  noth- 
ing, as  nothing  also  returns  to  non-existence),  so  also  the 
intellectual  part  comes  from  some  source. 

Death  is  such  as  generation  is,  a  mystery  of  nature;  a 
composition  out  of  the  same  elements,  and  a  decomposition 
into  the  same ;  and  altogether  not  a  thing  of  which  any  man 
should  be  ashamed,  for  it  is  not  contrary  to  [the  nature  of] 
a  reasonable  animal,  and  not  contrary  to  the  reason  of  our 
constitution. 

It  is  natural  that  these  things  should  be  done  by  such 
persons,  it  is  a  matter  of  necessity;  and  if  a  man  will  not 
have  it  so,  he  will  not  allow  the  fig-tree  to  have  juice.  But 
by  all  means  bear  this  in  mind,  that  within  a  very  short  time 
both  thou  and  he  will  be  dead ;  and  soon  not  even  your  names 
will  be  left  behind. 

Take  away  thy  opinion,  and  then  there  is  taken  away  the 
complaint,  "I  have  been  harmed."  Take  away  the  com- 
plaint, "I  have  been  harmed,"  and  the  harm  is  taken  away. 

That  which  does  not  make  a  man  worse  than  he  was, 
also  does  not  make  his  life  worse,  nor  does  it  harm  him 
either  from  without  or  from  within. 

The  nature  of  that  which  is  [universally]  useful  has  been 
compelled  to  do  this. 

Consider  that  everything  which  happens,  happens  justly, 
and  if  thou  observest  carefully,  thou  wilt  find  it  to  be  so. 
I  do  not  say  only  with  respect  to  the  continuity  of  the  series 
of  things,  but  with  respect  to  what  is  just,  and  as  if  it  were 
done  by  one  who  assigns  to  each  thing  its  value.  Observe 
then  as  thou  hast  begun ;  and  whatever  thou  doest,  do  it  in 
conjunction  with  this,  the  being  good,  and  in  the  sense  in 


MEDITATIONS  2/ 

which  a  man  is  properly  understood  to  be  good.     Keep  to 
this  in  every  action. 

Do  not  have  such  an  opinion  of  things  as  he  has  who 
does  thee  wrong,  or  such  as  he  wishes  thee  to  have,  but  look 
at  them  as  they  are  in  truth. 

A  man  should  always  have  these  two  rules  in  readiness; 
the  one,  to  do  only  whatever  the  reason  of  the  ruling 
and  legislating  faculty  may  suggest  for  the  use  of  men ;  the 
other,  to  change  thy  opinion,  if  there  is  any  one  at  hand  who 
sets  thee  right  and  moves  thee  from  any  opinion.  But  this 
change  of  opinion  must  proceed  only  from  a  certain  per- 
suasion, as  of  what  is  just  or  of  common  advantage,  and  the 
like,  not  because  it  appears  pleasant  or  brings  reputation. 

Hast  thou  reason?  I  have. — Why  then  dost  not  thou 
use  it?  For  if  this  does  its  own  work,  what  else  dost  thou 
wish? 

Thou  hast  existed  as  a  part.  Thou  shalt  disappear  in  that 
which  produced  thee ;  but  rather  thou  shalt  be  received  back 
into  its  seminal  principle  by  transmutation. 

Many  grains  of  frankincense  on  the  same  altar :  one  falls 
before,  another  falls  after ;  but  it  makes  no  difference. 

Within  ten  days  thou  wilt  seem  a  god  to  those  to  whom 
thou  art  now  a  beast  and  an  ape,  if  thou  wilt  return  to  thy 
principles  and  the  worship  of  reason. 

Do  not  act  as  if  thouwert  going  to  live  ten  thousand  years. 
Death  hangs  over  thee.  While  thou  livest,  while  it  is  in 
thy  power,  be  good. 

How  much  trouble  he  avoids  who  does  not  look  to  see 
what  his  neighbour  says  or  does  or  thinks,  but  only  to  what 
he  does  himself,  that  it  may  be  just  and  pure ;  or  as  Agathon* 
says,  look  not  round  at  the  depraved  morals  of  others,  but 
run  straight  along  the  line  without  deviating  from  it. 

He  who  has  a  vehement  desire  for  posthumous  fame  does 
not  consider  that  every  one  of  those  who  remember  him  will 
himself  die  very  soon;  then  again  also  they  who  have  suc- 
ceeded them,  until  the  whole  remembrance  shall  have  been 
extinguished  as  it  is  transmitted  through  men  who  foolishly 
admire  and  perish.  But  even  suppose  that  those  who  will 
remember  are  immortal,  and  that  the  remembrance  will  be 
immortal,  what  then  is  this  to  thee?    And  I  say  not  what 


iS  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

is  it  to  the  dead,  but  what  is  it  to  the  living.  What  is  praise, 
except*  indeed  so  far  as  it  has*  a  certain  utiHty  ?  For  thou 
now  rejectest  unseasonably  the  gift  of  nature,  clinging  to 
something  else  .  .  .  *. 

Everything  which  is  in  any  way  beautiful  is  beautiful  in 
itself,  and  terminates  in  itself,  not  having  praise  as  part  of 
itself.  Neither  worse  then  nor  better  is  a  thing  made  by  be- 
ing praised.  I  affirm  this  also  of  the  things  which  are  called 
beautiful  by  the  vulgar,  for  example,  material  things  and 
works  of  art.  That  which  is  really  beautiful  has  no  need 
of  anything;  not  more  than  law,  not  more  than  truth,  not 
more  than  benevolence  or  modesty.  Which  of  these  things 
is  beautiful  because  it  is  praised,  or  spoiled  by  being  blamed  ? 
Is  such  a  thing  as  an  emerald  made  worse  than  it  was,  if  it 
is  not  praised  ?  or  gold,  ivory,  purple,  a  lyre,  a  little  knife,  a 
flower,  a  shrub? 

If  souls  continue  to  exist,  how  does  the  air  contain  them 
from  eternity? — But  how  does  the  earth  contain  the  bodies 
of  those  who  have  been  buried  from  time  so  remote?  For 
as  here  the  mutation  of  these  bodies  after  a  certain  con- 
tinuance, whatever  it  may  be,  and  their  dissolution  make 
room  for  other  dead  bodies ;  so  the  souls  which  are  removed 
into  the  air  after  subsisting  for  some  time  are  transmuted 
and  diffused,  and  assume  a  fiery  nature  by  being  received 
into  the  seminal  intelligence  of  the  universe,  and  in  this  way 
make  room  for  the  fresh  souls  which  come  to  dwell  there. 
And  this  is  the  answer  which  a  man  might  give  on  the 
hypothesis  of  souls  continuing  to  exist.  But  we  must  not 
only  think  of  the  number  of  bodies  which  are  thus  buried, 
but  also  of  the  number  of  animals  which  are  daily  eaten  by 
us  and  the  other  animals.  For  what  a  number  is  consumed, 
and  thus  in  a  manner  buried  in  the  bodies  of  those  who  feed 
on  them?  And  nevertheless  this  earth  receives  them  by 
reason  of  the  changes  [of  these  bodies]  into  blood,  and  the 
transformations  into  the  aerial  or  of  the  fiery  element. 

What  is  the  investigation  into  the  truth  in  this  matter? 
The  division  into  that  which  is  material  and  that  which  is 
the  cause  of  form  [the  formal]. 

Do  not  be  whirled  about,  but  in  every  movement  have 
respect  to  justice,  and  on  the  occasion  of  every  impression 


MEDITATIONS  29 

maintain  the  faculty  of  comprehension  [or  understanding]. 

Everything  harmonizes  with  me,  which  is  harmonious  to 
thee,  O  Universe.  Nothing  for  me  is  too  early  nor  too 
late,  which  is  in  due  time  for  thee.  Everything  is  fruit  to 
me  which  thy  seasons  bring,  O  Nature:  from  thee  are  all 
things,  in  thee  are  all  things,  to  thee  all  things  return.  The 
poet  says.  Dear  city  of  Cecrops ;  and  wilt  not  thou  say,  Dear 
city  of  Zeus  ? 

Occupy  thyself  with  few  things,  says  the  philosopher,  if 
thou  wouldst  be  tranqail. — But  consider  if  it  would  not  be 
better  to  say,  Do  what  is  necessary,  and  whatever  the  reason 
of  the  animal  which  is  naturally  social  requires,  and  as  it 
requires.  For  this  brings  not  only  the  tranquillity  which 
comes  from  doing  well,  but  also  that  which  comes  from  do- 
ing few  things.  For  the  greatest  part  of  what  we  say  and  do 
being  unnecessary,  if  a  man  takes  this  away,  he  will  have 
more  leisure  and  less  uneasiness.  Accordingly  on  every 
occasion  a  man  should  ask  himself.  Is  this  one  of  the  un- 
necessary things?  Now  a  man  should  take  away  not  only 
unnecessary  acts,  but  also  unnecessary  thoughts,  for  thus 
superfluous  acts  will  not  follow  after. 

Try  how  the  life  of  the  good  man  suits  thee,  the  life  of 
him  who  is  satisfied  with  his  portion  out  of  the  whole,  and 
satisfied  with  his  own  just  acts  and  benevolent  disposition. 

Hast  thou  seen  those  things?  Look  also  at  these.  Do 
not  disturb  thyself.  Make  thyself  all  simplicity.  Does  any 
one  do  wrong?  Is  it  to  himself  that  he  does  the  wrong. 
Has  anything  happened  to  thee  ?  Well ;  out  of  the  universe 
from  the  beginning  everything  which  happens  has  been  ap- 
portioned and  spun  out  of  thee.  In  a  word,  thy  life  is  short. 
Thou  must  turn  to  profit  the  present  by  the  aid  of  reason 
and  justice.     Be  sober  in  thy  relaxation. 

Either  it  is  a  well  arranged  universe*  or  a  chaos  huddled 
together,  but  still  a  universe.  But  can  a  certain  order  sub- 
sist in  thee,  and  disorder  in  the  All  ?  And  this  too  when  al! 
things  are  so  separated  and  diffused  and  sympathethic. 

A  black  character,  a  womanish  character,  a  stubborn  char- 
acter, bestial,  childish,  animal,  stupid,  counterfeit,  scurrilous, 
fraudulent,  tyrannical ! 

If  he  is  a  stranger  to  the  universe  who  does  not  know 


3©  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

what  is  in  it,  no  less  is  he  a  stranger  who  does  not  know  what 
is  going  on  in  it.  He  is  a  runaway,  who  flies  from  social  rea- 
son ;  he  is  blind,  who  shuts  the  eyes  of  the  understanding ;  he 
is  poor,  who  has  need  of  another,  and  has  not  from  himself 
all  things  which  are  useful  for  life.  He  is  an  abscess  on  the 
universe  who  withdraws  and  separates  himself  from  the 
reason  of  our  common  nature  through  being  displeased  with 
the  things  which  happen,  for  the  same  nature  produces  this, 
and  has  produced  thee  too :  he  is  a  piece  rent  asunder  from 
the  state,  who  tears  his  own  soul  from  that  of  reasonable 
animals. 

The  one  is  a  philosopher  without  a  tunic,  and  the  other 
without  a  book :  here  is  another  half  naked :  Bread  I  have 
not,  he  says,  and  I  abide  by  reason^ — And  I  do  not  get  the 
means  of  living  out  of  my  learning,*  and  I  abide  [by  my 
reason]. 

Love  the  art,  poor  as  it  may  be,  which  thou  hast  learned, 
and  be  content  with  it;  and  pass  through  the  rest  of  life 
like  one  who  has  intrusted  to  the  gods  with  his  whole  soul 
all  that  he  has,  making  thyself  neither  the  tyrant  nor  the 
slave  of  any  man. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  times  of  Vespasian.  Thou 
wilt  see  all  these  things,  people  marrying,  bringing  up  chil- 
dren, sick,  dying,  warring,  feasting,  trafficking,  cultivating 
the  ground,  flattering,  obstinately  arrogant,  suspecting,  plot- 
ting, wishing  for  some  to  die,  grumbling  about  the  present, 
loving,  heaping  up  treasure,  desiring  consulship,  kingly 
power.  Well  then  that  life  of  these  people  no  longer  exists 
at  all.  Again,  remove  to  the  times  of  Trajan.  Again,  all 
is  the  same.  Their  life  too  is  gone.  In  like  manner  view 
also  the  other  epochs  of  time  and  of  whole  nations,  and  see 
how  many  after  great  efforts  soon  fell  and  were  resolved  into 
the  elements.  But  chiefly  thou  shouldst  think  of  those  whom 
thou  hast  thyself  known  distracting  themselves  about  idle 
things,  neglecting  to  do  what  was  in  accordance  with  their 
proper  constitution,  and  to  hold  firmly  to  this  and  to  be  con- 
tent with  it.  And  herein  it  is  necessary  to  remember  that 
the  attention  given  to  everything  has  its  proper  value  and 
proportion.  For  thus  thou  wilt  not  be  dissatisfied,  if  thou 
appliest  thyself  to  smaller  matters  no  further  than  is  fit 


MEDITATIONS  3 1 

The  words  which  were  formerly  famiHar  are  now  anti- 
quated :  so  also  the  names  of  those  who  were  famed  of  old, 
are  now  in  a  manner  antiquated,  Camillus,  Caeso,  Volesus, 
Leonnatus,  and  a  little  afterward,  also  Scipio  and  Cato,  then 
Augustus,  then  also  Hadrianus  and  Antoninus.  For  all 
things  soon  pass  away  and  become  a  mere  tale,  and  complete 
oblivion  soon  buries  them.  And  I  say  this  of  those  who  have 
shone  in  a  wondrous  way.  For  the  rest,  as  soon  as  they  have 
breathed  out  their  breath,  they  are  gone,  and  no  man  speaks 
of  them.  And,  to  conclude  the  matter,  what  is  even  an 
eternal  remembrance?  A  mere  nothing.  What  then  is 
that  about  which  we  ought  to  employ  our  serious  pains? 
This  one  thing,  thoughts  just,  and  acts  social,  and  words 
which  never  lie,  and  a  disposition  which  gladly  accepts  all 
that  happens,  as  necessary,  as  usual,  as  flowing  from  a  prin- 
ciple and  source  of  the  same  kind. 

Willingly  give  thyself  up  to  Clotho,  allowing  her  to  spin 
thy  thread*  into  whatever  things  she  pleases. 

Everything  is  only  for  a  day,  both  that  which  remembers 
and  that  which  is  remembered. 

Observe  constantly  that  all  things  take  place  by  change, 
and  accustom  thyself  to  consider  that  the  nature  of  the  Uni- 
verse loves  nothing  so  much  as  to  change  the  things  which 
are  and  to  make  new  things  like  them.  For  everything  that 
exists  is  in  a  manner  the  seed  of  that  which  will  be.  But 
thou  art  thinking  only  of  seeds  which  are  cast  into  the  earth 
or  into  a  womb :  but  this  is  a  very  vulgar  notion. 

Thou  wilt  soon  die,  and  thou  art  not  yet  simple,  nor  free 
from  perturbations,  nor  without  suspicion  of  being  hurt  by 
external  things,  nor  kindly  disposed  towards  all;  nor  dost 
thou  yet  place  wisdom  only  in  acting  justly. 

Examine  men's  ruling  principles,  even  those  of  the  wise, 
what  kind  of  things  they  avoid,  and  what  kind  they  pursue. 

What  is  evil  to  thee  does  not  subsist  in  the  ruling  prin- 
ciple of  another ;  nor  yet  in  any  turning  and  mutation  of  thy 
corporeal  covering.  Where  is  it  then  ?  It  is  in  that  part  of 
thee  in  which  subsists  the  power  of  forming  opinions  about 
evils.  Let  this  power  then  not  form  [such]  opinions,  and 
all  is  well.  And  if  that  which  is  nearest  to  it,  the  poor  body, 
is  cut,  burnt,  filled  with  matter  and  rottenness,  neverthe- 


32  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

less  let  the  part  which  forms  opinions  about  these  things  be 
quiet,  that  is,  let  it  judge  that  nothing  is  either  bad  or  good 
which  can  happen  equally  to  the  bad  man  and  the  good. 
For  that  which  happens  equally  to  him  who  lives  contrary 
to  nature  and  to  him  who  lives  according  to  nature,  is  neither 
according  to  nature  nor  contrary  to  nature. 

Constantly  regard  the  universe  as  one  living  being,  hav- 
ing one  substance  and  one  soul ;  and  observe  how  all  things 
have  reference  to  one  perception,  the  perception  of  this  one 
living  being ;  and  how  all  things  act  with  one  movement ;  and 
how  all  things  are  the  co-operating  causes  of  all  things  which 
exist ;  observe  too  the  continuous  spinning  of  the  thread  and 
the  contexture  of  the  web. 

Thou  art  a  little  soul  bearing  about  a  corpse,  as  Epictetus 
used  to  say. 

It  is  no  evil  for  things  to  undergo  change,  and  no  good  for 
things  to  subsist  in  consequence  of  change. 

Time  is  like  a  river  made  up  of  the  events  which  happen, 
and  a  violent  stream :  for  as  soon  as  a  thing  has  been  seen, 
it  is  carried  away,  and  another  comes  in  its  place,  and  this 
will  be  carried  away  too. 

Everything  which  happens  is  as  familiar  and  well  known 
as  the  rose  in  spring  and  the  fruit  in  summer;  for  such  is 
disease,  and  death,  and  calumny,  and  treachery,  and  what- 
ever else  delights  fools  or  vexes  them. 

In  the  series  of  things  those  which  follow  are  always  aptly 
fitted  to  those  which  have  gone  before;  for  this  series  is  not 
like  a  mere  enumeration  of  disjointed  things,  which  has 
only  a  necessary  sequence,  but  it  is  a  rational  connection: 
and  as  all  existing  things  are  arranged  together  harmoni- 
ously, so  the  things  which  come  into  existence  exhibit  no 
mere  succession,  but  a  wonderful  relationship. 

Always  remember  the  saying  of  Heraclitus,  that  the  death 
of  earth  is  to  become  water,  and  the  death  of  water  is  to 
become  air,  and  the  death  of  air  is  to  become  fire,  and  re- 
versely. And  think  too  of  him  who  forgets  whither  the 
way  leads,  and  that  men  quarrel  with  that  with  which  they 
are  most  constantly  in  communion,  the  reason  which  governs 
the  universe;  and  the  things  which  they  daily  meet  with 
seem  to  them  strange :  and  consider  that  we  ought  not  to  act 


MEDITATIONS  33 

and  speak  as  if  we  were  asleep,  for  even  in  sleep  we  seem  to 
act  and  speak;  and  that*  we  ought  not,  like  children  who 
learn  from  their  parents,  simply  to  act  and  speak  as  we  have 
been  taught.* 

If  any  god  told  thee  that  thou  shalt  die  to-morrow,  or 
certainly  on  the  day  after  to-morrow,  thou  wouldst  not  care 
much  whether  it  was  on  the  third  day  or  on  the  morrow, 
unless  thou  wast  in  the  highest  degree  mean-spirited, — for 
how  small  is  the  difference? — so  think  it  no  great  thing  to 
die  after  as  many  years  as  thou  canst  name  rather  than  to- 
morrow. 

Think  continually  how  many  physicians  are  dead  after 
often  contracting  their  eyebrows  over  the  sick;  and  how 
many  astrologers  after  predicting  with  great  pretensions  the 
deaths  of  others;  and  how  many  philosophers  after  endless 
discourses  on  death  or  immortality ;  how  many  heroes  after 
killing  thousands;  and  how  many  tyrants  who  have  used 
their  power  over  men's  lives  with  terrible  insolence  as  if  they 
were  immortal ;  and  how  many  cities  are  entirely  dead,  so  to 
speak,  Helice*  and  Pompeii  and  Herclanum,  and  others 
innumerable.  Add  to  the  reckoning  all  whom  thou  hast 
known,  one  after  another.  One  man  after  burying  another 
has  been  laid  out  dead,  and  another  buries  him ;  and  all  this 
in  a  short  time.  To  conclude,  always  observe  how  ephem- 
eral and  worthless  human  things  are,  and  what  was  yester- 
day a  little  mucus,  to-morrow  will  be  a  mummy  or  ashes. 
Pass  then  through  this  little  space  of  time  conformably  to 
nature,  and  end  thy  journey  in  content,  just  as  an  olive  falls 
off  when  it  is  ripe,  blessing  nature  who  produced  it,  and 
thanking  the  tree  on  which  it  grew. 

Be  like  the  promontory  against  which  the  waves  contin- 
ually break,  but  it  stands  firm  and  tames  the  fury  of  the 
water  around  it. 

Unhappy  am  I,  because  this  has  happened  to  me — Not  so, 
but  happy  am  I,  though  this  has  happened  to  me,  because  I 
continue  free  from  pain,  neither  crushed  by  the  present  nor 
fearing  the  future.  For  such  a  thing  as  this  might  have 
happened  to  every  man ;  but  every  man  would  not  have  con- 
tinued free  from  pain  on  such  an  occasion.  Why  then  is 
that  rather  a  misfortune  than  this  a  good  fortune?    And 


34  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

dost  thou  in  all  cases  call  that  a  man's  misfortune,  which  is 
not  a  deviation  from  man's  nature?  And  does  a  things  seem 
to  thee  to  be  a  deviation  from  man's  nature,  when  it  is  not 
contrary  to  the  will  of  man's  nature.  Well,  thou  knowest 
the  will  of  nature.  Will  then  this  which  has  happened 
prevent  thee  from  being  just,  magnanimous,  temperate,  pru- 
dent, secure  against  inconsiderate  opinions  and  falsehood; 
will  it  prevent  thee  from  having  modesty,  freedom,  and 
everything  else  by  the  presence  of  which  man's  nature  ob- 
tains all  that  is  its  own  ?  Remember  too  on  every  occasion 
which  leads  thee  to  vexation  to  apply  this  principle :  not  that 
this  is  a  misfortune,  but  that  to  bear  it  nobly  is  good  fortune. 

It  is  a  vulgar,  but  still  a  useful  help  towards  contempt  of 
death,  to  pass  in  review  those  who  have  tenaciously  stuck  to 
life.  What  more  then  have  they  gained  than  those  who 
have  died  early?  Certainly  they  lie  in  their  tombs  some- 
where at  last,  Cadicianus,  Fabius,  Julianus,  Lepidus,  or  any 
one  else  like  them,  who  have  carried  out  many  to  be  buried, 
and  then  were  carried  out  themselves.  Altogether  the  in- 
terval is  small  [between  birth  and  death]  ;  and  consider  with 
how  much  trouble,  and  in  company  with  what  sort  of  people 
and  in  what  a  feeble  body  this  interval  is  laboriously  passed. 
Do  not  then  consider  life  a  thing  of  any  value.*  For  look 
to  the  immensity  of  time  behind  thee,  and  to  the  time  which 
is  before  thee,  another  boundless  space.  In  this  infinity  then 
what  is  the  difference  between  him  who  lives  three  days  and 
him  who  lives  three  generations?'' 

Always  run  to  the  short  way;  and  the  short  way  is  the 
natural:  accordingly  say  and  do  everything  in  conformity 
with  the  soundest  reason.  For  such  a  purpose  frees  a  man 
from  trouble,*  and  warfare,  and  all  artifice  and  ostentatious 
display. 

NOTES 

*  Tecum  habita,  noris  quam  sit  tibi  curta  supellex. — Persius,  iv,  52. 

*  Compare  Cicero,  De  Legibus,  i.  7. 

•Antoninus  here  uses  the  word  Kodjuo?  both  in  the  sense  of  the  Uni- 
verse and  of  Order ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  express  his  meaning. 

*  Ovid,  Met.  xv,  293 : 

Si  quaeras  Helicen  et  Burin  Achaidas  urbes, 
Invenies  sub  aquis. 

*  An  allusion  to  Homer's  Nestor  who  was  living  at  the  war  of  Troy 
among  the  third  generation,  like  old  Parr  with  his  hundred  and  fifty- 


MEDITATIONS  35 

two  years,  and  some  others  in  modem  times  who  have  beaten  Parr  by 
twenty  or  thirty  years,  if  it  is  true;  and  yet  they  died  at  last.  The 
word  is  Tpiyeptfviov  in  Antoninus.  Nestor  is  named  rptyapcov  by  some 
writers ;  but  here  perhaps  there  is  an  allusion  to  Homer's  rspr/vtoi  iic- 
icora  NidToop. 


'     BOOK  V 

IN  the  morning  when  thou  risest  unwilHngly,  let  this 
thought  be  present — I  am  rising  to  the  work  of  a  human 
being.  Why  then  am  I  dissatisfied  if  I  am  going  to  do 
the  things  for  which  I  exist  and  for  which  I  was 
brought  into  the  world?  Or  have  I  been  made  for  this,  to 
lie  in  the  bedclothes  and  keep  myself  warm? — But  this  is 
more  pleasant — Dost  thou  exist  then  to  take  thy  pleasure, 
and  not  at  all  for  action  or  exertion  ?  Dost  thou  not  see  the 
little  plants,  the  little  birds,  the  ants,  the  spiders,  the  bees 
working  together  to  put  in  order  their  several  parts  of  the 
universe?  And  art  thou  unwilling  to  do  the  work  of  a 
human  being,  and  dost  thou  not  make  haste  to  do  that  which 
is  according  to  thy  nature  ? — But  it  is  necessary  to  take  rest 
also — It  is  necessary:  however  nature  has  fixed  bounds  to 
this  too :  she  has  fixed  bounds  both  to  eating  and  drinking, 
and  yet  thou  goest  beyond  these  bounds,  beyond  what  is 
sufficient ;  yet  in  thy  acts  it  is  not  so,  but  thou  stoppest  short 
of  what  thou  canst  do.  So  thou  lovest  not  thyself,  for  if 
thou  didst,  thou  wouldst  love  thy  nature  and  her  will.  But 
those  who  love  their  several  arts  exhaust  themselves  in 
working  at  them  unwashed  and  without  food ;  but  thou  val- 
uest  thy  own  nature  less  than  the  turner  values  the  turning 
art,  or  the  dancer  the  dancing  art,  or  the  lover  of  money  val- 
ues his  money,  or  the  vainglorious  man  his  little  glory.  And 
such  men,  when  they  have  a  violent  affection  to  a  thing, 
choose  neither  to  eat  nor  to  sleep  rather  than  to  perfect  the 
things  which  they  care  for.  But  are  the  acts  which  concern 
society  more  vile  in  thy  eyes  and  less  worthy  of  thy  labour  ? 

How  easy  it  is  to  repel  and  to  wipe  away  every  impression 
which  is  troublesome  or  unsuitable,  and  immediately  to  be  in 
all  tranquillity. 

Judge  every  word  and  deed  which  are  according  to  na- 

96 


MEDITATIONS  37 

ture  to  be  fit  for  thee;  and  be  not  diverted  by  the  blame 
which  follows  from  any  people  nor  by  their  words,  but  if  a 
thing  is  good  to  be  done  or  said,  do  not  consider  it  unworthy 
of  thee.  For  those  persons  have  their  peculiar  leading  prin- 
ciple and  follow  their  peculiar  movement;  which  things  do 
not  thou  regard,  but  go  straight  on,  following  thy  own  na- 
ture and  the  common  nature ;  and  the  way  of  both  is  one. 

I  go  through  the  things  which  happen  according  to  nature 
until  I  shall  fall  and  rest,  breathing  out  my  breath  into  that 
element  out  of  which  I  daily  draw  it  in,  and  falling  upon 
that  earth  out  of  which  my  father  collected  the  seed,  and 
my  mother  the  blood,  and  my  nurse  the  milk ;  out  of  which 
during  so  many  years  I  have  been  supplied  with  food  and 
drink:  which  bears  me  when  I  tread  on  it  and  abuse  it  for 
so  many  purposes. 

Thou  sayest.  Men  can  admire  the  sharpness  of  thy  wits — 
Be  it  so:  but  there  are  many  other  things  of  which  thou 
canst  not  say,  I  am  not  formed  for  them  by  nature.  Show 
those  qualities  then  which  are  altogether  in  thy  power :  sin- 
cerity, gravity,  endurance  of  labour,  aversion  to  pleasure, 
contentment  with  thy  portion  and  with  few  things,  benevo- 
lence, frankness,  no  love  of  superfluity,  freedom  from  tri- 
fling, magnanimity.  Dost  thou  not  see  how  many  qualities 
thou  art  immediately  able  to  exhibit,  in  which  there  is  no 
excuse  of  natural  incapacity  and  unfitness,  and  yet  thou  still 
remainest  voluntarily  below  the  mark?  or  art  thou  com- 
pelled through  being  defectively  furnished  by  nature  to  mur- 
mur, and  to  be  stingy,  and  to  flatter,  and  to  find  fault  with 
thy  poor  body,  and  to  try  to  please  men,  and  to  make  great 
display,  and  to  be  so  restless  in  thy  mind  ?  No  by  the  gods : 
but  thou  mightest  have  been  delivered  from  these  things  long 
ago.  Only  if  in  truth  thou  canst  be  charged  with  being 
rather  slow  and  dull  of  comprehension,  thou  must  exert  thy- 
self about  this  also,  not  neglecting  it  nor  yet  taking  pleasure 
in  thy  dulness. 

One  man,  when  he  has  done  a  service  to  another,  is  ready 
to  set  it  down  to  his  account  as  a  favour  conferred.  Another 
is  not  ready  to  do  this,  but  still  in  his  own  mind  he  thinks 
of  the  man  as  his  debtor,  and  he  knows  what  he  has  done. 
A  third  in  a  manner  does  not  even  know  what  he  has  done, 


$8  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

but  he  is  like  a  vine  which  has  produced  grapes,  and  seeks 
for  nothing  more  after  it  has  once  produced  its  proper  fruit. 
As  a  horse  when  he  has  run,  a  dog  when  he  has  tracked  the 
game,  a  bee  when  it  has  made  the  honey,  so  a  man  when  he 
has  done  a  good  act,  does  not  call  out  for  others  to  come  and 
see,  but  he  goes  on  to  another  act,  as  a  vine  goes  on  to  pro- 
duce again  the  grapes  in  season — Must  a  man  then  be  one 
of  these,  who  in  a  manner  act  thus  without  observing  it? — 
Yes — But  this  very  thing  is  necessary,  the  observation  of 
what  a  man  is  doing :  for,  it  may  be  said,  it  is  characteristic 
of  the  social  animal  to  perceive  that  he  is  working  in  a  social 
manner,  and  indeed  to  wish  that  his  social  partner  also 
should  perceive  it — It  is  true  what  thou  sayest,  but  thou  dost 
not  rightly  understand  what  is  now  said :  and  for  this  reason 
thou  wilt  become  one  of  those  of  whom  I  spoke  before,  for 
even  they  are  misled  by  a  certain  show  of  reason.  But  if 
thou  wilt  choose  to  understand  the  meaning  of  what  is  said, 
do  not  fear  that  for  this  reason  thou  wilt  omit  any  social  act. 

A  prayer  of  the  Athenians:  "Rain,  rain,  O  dear  Zeus, 
down  on  the  ploughed  fields  of  the  Athenians  and  on  the 
plains."  In  truth  we  ought  not  to  pray  at  all,  or  we  ought  to 
pray  in  this  simple  and  noble  fashion. 

Just  as  we  must  understand  when  it  is  said,  That  ^scu- 
lapius  prescribed  to  this  man  horse-exercise,  or  bathing  in 
cold  water  or  going  without  shoes;  so  we  must  understand 
it  when  it  is  said.  That  the  nature  of  the  universe  prescribed 
to  this  man  disease  or  mutilation  or  loss  or  anything  else  of 
the  kind.  For  in  the  first  case  Prescribed  means  something 
like  this :  he  prescribed  this  for  this  man  as  a  thing  adapted 
to  procure  health;  and  in  the  second  case  it  means.  That 
which  happens^  to  [or,  suits]  every  man  is  fixed  in  a  manner 
for  him  suitably  to  his  destiny.  For  this  is  what  we  mean 
when  we  say  that  things  are  suitable  to  us,  as  the  workmen 
say  of  squared  stones  in  walls  .or  the  pyramids,  that  they  are 
suitable,  when  they  fit  them  to  one  another  in  some  kind  of 
connection.  For  there  is  altogether  one  fitness  [harmony]. 
And  as  the  universe  is  made  up  out  of  all  bodies  to  be  such  a 
body  as  it  is,  so  out  of  all  existing  causes  necessity  [destiny] 
is  made  up  to  be  such  a  cause  as  it  is.  And  even  those  who 
are  completely  ignorant  understand  what  I  mean,  for  they 


MEDITATIONS  39 

say,  It  [necessity,  destiny]  brought  this  to  such  a  person. — 
This  then  was  brought  and  this  was  prescribed  to  him.  Let 
us  then  receive  these  things,  as  well  as  those  which  ^scu- 
lapius  prescribes.  Many  as  a  matter  of  course  even  among 
his  prescriptions  are  disagreeable,  but  we  accept  them  in  the 
hope  of  health.  Let  the  perfecting  and  accomplishment  of 
the  things,  which  the  common  nature  judges  to  be  good,  be 
judged  by  thee  to  be  of  the  same  kind  as  thy  health.  And  so 
accept  everything  which  happens,  even  if  it  seem  disagree- 
able, because  it  leads  to  this,  to  the  health  of  the  universe  and 
to  the  prosperity  and  felicity  of  Zeus  [the  universe].  For 
he  would  not  have  brought  on  any  man  what  he  has  brought, 
if  it  were  not  useful  for  the  whole.  Neither  does  the  nature 
of  anything,  whatever  it  may  be,  cause  anything  which  is 
not  suitable  to  that  which  is  directed  by  it.  For  two  reasons 
then  it  is  right  to  be  content  with  that  which  happens  to 
thee ;  the  one,  because  it  was  done  for  thee  and  prescribed  for 
thee,  and  in  a  manner  had  reference  to  thee,  originally  from 
the  most  ancient  causes  spun  with  thy  destiny ;  and  the  other, 
because  even  that  which  comes  severally  to  every  man  is  to 
the  power  which  administers  the  universe  a  cause  of  felicity 
and  perfection,  nay  even  of  its  very  continuance.  For  the 
integrity  of  the  whole  is  mutilated,  if  thou  cuttest  ofif  any- 
thing whatever  from  the  conjunction  and  the  continuity 
either  of  the  parts  or  of  the  causes.  And  thou  dost  cut  off, 
as  far  as  it  is  in  thy  power,  when  thou  art  dissatisfied,  and  in 
a  manner  triest  to  put  anything  out  of  the  way. 

Be  not  disgusted,  nor  discouraged,  nor  dissatisfied,  if  thou 
dost  not  succeed  in  doing  everything  according  to  right  prin- 
ciples but  when  thou  hast  failed,  return  back  again,  and  be 
content  if  the  greater  part  of  what  thou  doest  is  consistent 
with  man's  nature,  and  love  this  to  which  thou  retumest ;  and 
do  not  return  to  philosophy  as  if  she  were  a  master,  but  act  like 
those  who  have  sore  eyes  and  apply  a  bit  of  sponge  and  egg, 
or  as  another  applies  a  plaster,  or  drenching  with  water. 
For  thus  thou  wilt  not  fail  to*  obey  reason,  and  thou  wilt 
repose  in  it.  And  remember  that  philosophy  requires  only 
the  things  which  thy  nature  requires ;  but  thou  wouldst  have 
something  else  which  is  not  according  to  nature — It  may 
be  objected,  Why  what  is  more  agreeable  than  this  [which  I 


40  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

am  doing]  ? — But  is  not  this  the  very  reason  why  pleasure 
deceives  us?  And  consider  if  magnanimity,  freedom,  sim- 
plicity, equanimity,  piety,  are  not  more  agreeable.  For 
what  is  more  agreeable  than  wisdom  itself,  when  thou  think- 
est  of  the  security  and  the  happy  course  of  all  things  which 
depend  on  the  faculty  of  understanding  and  knowledge? 

Things  are  in  such  a  kind  of  envelopment  that  they  have 
seemed  to  philosophers,  not  a  few  nor  those  common  philos- 
ophers, altogether  unintelligible;  nay  even  to  the  Stoics 
themselves  they  seem  difficult  to  understand.  And  all  our 
assent  is  changeable;  for  where  is  the  man  who  never 
changes?  Carry  thy  thoughts  then  to  the  objects  them- 
selves, and  consider  how  short-lived  they  are  and  worthless, 
and  that  they  may  be  in  the  possession  of  a  filthy  wretch  or  a 
whore  or  a  robber.  Then  turn  to  the  morals  of  those  who 
live  with  thee,  and  it  is  hardly  possible  to  endure  even  the 
most  agreeable  of  them,  to  say  nothing  of  a  man  being 
hardly  able  to  endure  himself.  In  such  darkness  then  and 
dirt  and  in  so  constant  a  flux  both  of  substance  and  of  time, 
and  of  motion  and  of  things  moved,  what  there  is  worth  be- 
ing highly  prized  or  even  an  object  of  serious  pursuit,  I  can 
not  imagine.  But  on  the  contrary  it  is  a  man's  duty  to  com- 
fort himself,  and  to  wait  for  the  natural  dissolution  and  not 
to  be  vexed  at  the  delay,  but  to  rest  in  these  principles  only : 
the  one,  that  nothing  will  happen  to  me  which  is  not  con- 
formable to  the  nature  of  the  universe;  and  the  other,  that 
it  is  in  my  power  never  to  act  contrary  to  my  god  and  dae- 
mon :  for  there  is  no  man  who  will  compel  me  to  this. 

About  what  am  I  now  employing  my  own  soul?  On 
every  occasion  I  must  ask  myself  this  question,  and  inquire, 
what  have  I  now  in  this  part  of  me  which  they  call  the  ruling 
principle  ?  and  whose  soul  have  I  now  ?  that  of  a  child,  or  of 
a  young  man,  or  of  a  feeble  woman,  or  of  a  tyrant,  or  of  a 
domestic  animal,  or  of  a  wild  beast? 

What  kind  of  things  those  are  which  appear  good  to  the 
many  we  may  learn  even  from  this.  For  if  any  man  should 
conceive  certain  things  as  being  really  good,  such  as  pru- 
dence, temperance,  justice,  fortitude,  he  would  not  after 
having  first  conceived  these  endure  to  listen  to  anything* 
which  should  not  be  in  harmony  with  what  is  really  good.* 


MEDITATIONS  4 1 

But  if  a  man  has  first  conceived  as  good  the  things  which 
appear  to  the  many  to  be  good,  he  will  listen  and  readily  re- 
ceive as  very  applicable  that  which  was  said  by  the  comic 
writer.*  Thus  even  the  many  perceive  the  difference.*  For 
were  it  not  so,  this  saying  would  not  offend  and  would  not  be 
rejected  [in  the  first  case],  while  we  receive  it  when  it  is  said 
of  wealth,  and  of  the  means  which  further  luxury  and  fame, 
as  said  fitly  and  wittily.  Go  on  then  and  ask  if  we  should 
value  and  think  those  things  to  be  good,  to  which  after  their 
first  conception  in  the  mind  the  words  of  the  comic  writer 
might  be  aptly  applied — that  he  who  has  them,  through  pure 
abundance  has  not  a  place  to  ease  himself  in. 

I  am  composed  of  the  formal  and  the  material ;  and  neither 
of  them  will  perish  into  non-existence,  as  neither  of  them 
came  into  existence  out  of  non-existence.  Every  part  of  me 
then  will  be  reduced  by  change  into  some  part  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  that  again  will  change  into  another  part  of  the 
universe,  and  so  on  forever.  And  by  consequence  of  such  a 
change  I  too  exist,  and  those  who  begot  me,  and  so  on  for 
ever  in  the  other  direction.  For  nothing  hinders  us  from 
saying  so,  even  if  the  universe  is  administered  according  to 
definite  periods  [of  revolution]. 

Reason  and  the  reasoning  art  [philosophy]  are  powers 
which  are  sufficient  for  themselves  and  for  their  own  works. 
They  move  then  from  a  first  principle  which  is  their  own, 
and  they  make  their  way  to  the  end  which  is  proposed  to 
them ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  such  acts  are  named  Cator- 
thoseis  or  right  acts,  which  word  signifies  that  they  proceed 
by  the  right  road. 

None  of  these  things  ought  to  be  called  a  man's,  which 
do  not  belong  to  a  man,  as  man.  They  are  not  required  of  a 
man,  nor  does  man's  nature  promise  them,  nor  are  they  the 
means  of  man's  nature  attaining  its  end.  Neither  then  does 
the  end  of  man  lie  in  these  things,  nor  yet  that  which  aids  to 
the  accomplishment  of  this  end,  and  that  which  aids  towards 
this  end  is  that  which  is  good.  Besides,  if  any  of  these 
things  did  belong  to  man,  it  would  not  be  right  for  a  man  to 
despise  them  and  to  set  himself  against  them ;  nor  would  a 
man  be  worthy  of  praise  who  showed  that  he  did  not  want 
these  things,  nor  would  he  who  stinted  himself  in  any  of 


42  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

them  be  good,  if  indeed  these  things  were  good.  But  now 
the  more  of  these  things  a  man  deprives  himself  of,  or  of 
other  things  like  them,  or  even  when  he  is  deprived  of  any 
of  them,  the  more  patiently  he  endures  the  loss,  just  in  the 
same  degree  he  is  a  better  man. 

Such  as  are  thy  habitual  thoughts,  such  also  will  be  the 
character  of  thy  mind ;  for  the  soul  is  dyed  by  the  thoughts. 
Dye  it  then  with  a  continuous  series  of  such  thoughts  as 
these:  for  instance,  that  where  a  man  can  live,  there  he 
can  also  live  well.  But  he  must  live  in  a  palace ; — well  then, 
he  can  also  live  well  in  a  palace.  And  again,  consider  that 
for  whatever  purpose  each  thing  has  been  constituted,  for 
this  it  has  been  constituted,  and  towards  this  it  is  carried; 
and  its  end  is  in  that  towards  which  it  is  carried ;  and  where 
the  end  is,  there  also  is  the  advantage  and  the  good  of  each 
thing.  Now  the  good  for  the  reasonable  animal  is  society ; 
for  that  we  are  made  for  society  has  been  shown  above.  Is 
it  not  plain  that  the  inferior  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  supe- 
rior? but  the  things  which  have  life  are  superior  to  those 
which  have  not  life,  and  of  those  which  have  life  the  supe- 
rior are  those  which  have  reason. 

To  seek  what  is  impossible  is  madness :  and  it  is  impossi- 
ble that  the  bad  should  not  do  something  of  this  kind. 

Nothing  happens  to  any  man  which  he  is  not  formed  by 
nature  to  bear.  The  same  things  happen  to  another,  and 
either  because  he  does  not  see  that  they  have  happened  or  be- 
cause he  would  show  a  great  spirit,  he  is  firm  and  remains 
unharmed.  It  is  a  shame  then  that  ignorance  and  conceit 
should  be  stronger  than  wisdom. 

Things  themselves  touch  not  the  soul,  not  in  the  least 
degree;  nor  have  they  admission  to  the  soul,  nor  can  they 
turn  or  move  the  soul :  but  the  soul  turns  and  moves  itself 
alone,  and  whatever  judgments  it  may  think  proper  to  make, 
such  it  makes  for  itself  the  things  which  present  themselves 
to  it. 

In  one  respect  man  is  the  nearest  thing  to  me,  so  far 
as  I  must  do  good  to  men  and  endure  them.  But  so  far  as 
some  men  make  themselves  obstacles  to  my  proper  acts,  man 
becomes  to  me  one  of  the  things  which  are  indifferent,  no 
less  than  the  sun  or  wind  or  a  wild  beasL     Now  it  is  true 


MEDITATIONS  43 

that  these  may  impede  my  action,  but  they  are  no  impedi- 
ments to  my  affects  and  disposition,  which  have  the  power 
of  acting  conditionally  and  changing :  for  the  mind  converts 
and  changes  every  hindrance  to  its  activity  into  an  aid ;  and 
so  that  which  is  a  hindrance  is  made  a  furtherance  to  an  act ; 
and  that  which  is  an  obstacle  on  the  road  helps  us  on  this 
road. 

Reverence  that  which  is  best  in  the  universe;  and  this  is 
that  which  makes  use  of  all  things  and  directs  all  things. 
And  in  like  manner  also  reverence  that  which  is  best  in  thy- 
self; and  this  is  of  the  same  kind  as  that.  For  in  thyself 
also,  that  which  makes  use  of  everything  else,  is  this,  and 
thy  life  is  directed  by  this. 

That  which  does  no  harm  to  the  state,  does  no  harm  to 
the  citizen.  In  the  case  of  every  appearance  of  harm  apply 
this  rule:  if  the  state  is  not  harmed  by  this,  neither  am  I 
harmed.  But  if  the  state  is  harmed,  thou  must  not  be  angry 
with  him  who  does  harm  to  the  state.  Show  him  where  his 
error  is. 

Often  think  of  the  rapidity  with  which  things  pass  by  and 
disappear,  both  the  things  which  are  and  the  things  which 
are  produced.  For  substance  is  like  a  river  in  a  continual 
flow,  and  the  activities  of  things  are  in  constant  change,  and 
the  causes  work  in  infinite  varieties ;  and  there  is  hardly  any- 
thing which  stands  still.  And  consider  this  which  is  near 
to  thee,  this  boundless  abyss  of  the  past  and  of  the  future 
in  which  all  things  disappear.  How  then  is  he  not  a  fool 
who  is  puffed  up  with  such  things  or  plagued  about  them  and 
makes  himself  miserable?  for  they  vex  him  only  for  a  time, 
and  a  short  time. 

Think  of  the  universal  substance,  of  which  thou  hast  a 
very  small  portion ;  and  of  universal  time,  of  which  a  short 
and  indivisible  interval  has  been  assigned  to  thee;  and  of 
that  which  is  fixed  by  destiny,  and  how  small  a  part  of  it 
thou  art. 

Does  another  do  me  wrong  ?  Let  him  look  to  it.  He  has 
his  own  disposition,  his  own  activity.  I  now  have  what  the 
universal  nature  wills  me  to  have ;  and  I  do  what  my  nature 
now  wills  me  to  do. 

Let  the  part  of  thy  soul  which  leads  and  governs  be  un- 


44  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

disturbed  by  the  movements  in  the  flesh,  whether  of  pleas- 
ure or  of  pain ;  and  let  it  not  unite  with  them,  but  let  it  cir- 
cumscribe itself  and  limit  those  affects  to  their  parts.  But 
when  these  affects  rise  up  to  the  mind  by  virtue  of  that  other 
sympathy  that  naturally  exists  in  a  body  which  is  all  one, 
then  thou  must  not  strive  to  resist  the  sensation,  for  it  is 
natural :  but  let  not  the  ruling  part  of  itself  add  to  the  sen- 
sation the  opinion  that  it  is  either  good  or  bad. 

Live  with  the  gods.  And  he  does  live  with  the  gods  who 
constantly  shows  to  them  that  his  own  soul  is  satisfied  with 
that  which  is  assigned  to  him,  and  that  it  does  all  that  the 
daemon  wishes,  which  Zeus  hath  given  to  every  man  for 
his  guardian  and  guide,  a  portion  of  himself.  And  this  is 
every  man's  understanding  and  reason. 

Art  thou  angry  with  him  whose  arm-pits  stink?  art  thou 
angry  with  him  whose  mouth  smells  foul  ?  What  good  will 
this  anger  do  thee  ?  He  has  such  a  mouth,  he  has  such  arm- 
pits :  it  is  necessary  that  such  an  emanation  must  come  from 
such  things — but  the  man  has  reason,  it  will  be  said,  and  he 
is  able,  if  he  takes  pains,  to  discover  wherein  he  offends — I 
wish  thee  well  of  thy  discovery.  Well  then,  and  thou  hast 
reason :  by  thy  rational  faculty  stir  up  his  rational  faculty ; 
show  him  his  error,  admonish  him.  For  if  he  listens,  thou 
wilt  cure  him,  and  there  is  no  need  of  anger. 
^_  As  thou  intendest  to  live  when  thou  art  gone  out ....  so 
it  is  in  thy  power  to  live  here.  But  if  men  do  not  permit 
thee,  then  get  away  out  of  life,  yet  so  as  if  thou  wert  suffer- 
ing no  harm.  The  house  is  smoky,  and  I  quit  it.  Why 
dost  thou  think  that  this  is  any  trouble?  But  so  long  as 
nothing  of  the  kind  drives  me  out,  I  remain,  am  free,  and 
no  man  shall  hinder  me  from  doing  what  I  choose;  and  I 
choose  to  do  what  is  according  to  the  nature  of  the  rational 
and  social  animal. 

The  intelligence  of  the  universe  is  social.  Accordingly 
it  has  made  the  inferior  things  for  the  sake  of  the  superior, 
and  it  has  fitted  the  superior  to  one  another.  Thou  seest 
how  it  has  subordinated,  co-ordinated  and  assigned  to  every- 
thing its  proper  portion,  and  has  brought  together  into  con- 
cord with  one  another  the  things  which  are  the  best. 

How  hast  thou  behaved  hitherto  to  the  gods,  thy  parents, 


MEDITATIONS  45 

brethren,  children,  teachers,  to  those  who  looked  after  thy  in- 
fancy, to  thy  friends,  kinsfolk,  to  thy  slaves?  Consider  if 
thou  hast  hitherto  behaved  to  all  in  such  a  way  that  this  may 
be  said  of  thee: 

"Never  has  wronged  a  man  in  deed  or  word." 

And  call  to  recollection  both  how  many  things  thou  hast 
passed  through,  and  how  many  things  thou  hast  been  able  to 
endure :  and  that  the  history  of  thy  life  is  now  complete  and 
thy  service  is  ended :  and  how  many  beautiful  things  thou 
hast  seen :  and  how  many  pleasures  and  pains  thou  hast  de- 
spised; and  how  many  things  called  honourable  thou  hast 
spumed ;  and  to  how  many  ill-minded  folks  thou  hast  shown 
a  kind  disposition. 

Why  do  unskilled  and  ignorant  souls  disturb  him  who 
has  skill  and  knowledge?  What  soul  then  has  skill  and 
knowledge?  That  which  knows  beginning  and  end,  and 
knows  the  reason  which  pervades  all  substance  and  through 
all  time  by  fixed  periods  [revolutions]  administers  the  uni- 
verse. 

Soon,  very  soon,  thou  wilt  be  ashes,  or  a  skeleton,  and 
either  a  name  or  not  even  a  name;  but  name  is  sound  and 
echo.  And  the  things  which  are  much  valued  in  life  are 
empty  and  rotten  and  trifling,  and  [like]  little  dogs  biting 
one  another,  and  little  children  quarrelling,  laughing,  and 
then  straightway  weeping.  But  fidelity  and  modesty  and 
justice  and  truth  are  fled 

"Up  to  Olympus  from  the  wide-spread  earth.** 

What  then  is  there  which  still  detains  thee  here?  if  the  ob- 
jects of  sense  are  easily  changed  and  never  stand  still,  and 
the  organs  of  perception  are  dull  and  easily  receive  false  im- 
pressions; and  the  poor  soul  itself  is  an  exhalation  from 
blood.  But  to  have  good  repute  amidst  such  a  world  as  this 
is  an  empty  thing.  Why  then  dost  thou  not  wait  in  tran- 
quillity for  thy  end,  whether  it  is  extinction  or  removal  to 
another  state?  And  until  that  time  comes,  what  is  suffi- 
cient? Why,  what  else  than  to  venerate  the  gods  and  bless 
them,  and  to  do  good  to  men,  and  to  practise  tolerance  and 


46  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

self-restraint  f  but  as  to  everything  which  is  beyond  the  lim- 
its of  the  poor  flesh  and  breath,  to  remember  that  this  is 
neither  thine  nor  in  thy  power. 

Thou  canst  pass  thy  life  in  an  equable  flow  of  happiness, 
if  thou  canst  go  by  the  right  way,  and  think  and  act  in  the 
right  way.  These  two  things  are  common  both  to  the  soul 
of  god  and  to  the  soul  of  man,  and  to  the  soul  of  every 
rational  being,  not  to  be  hindered  by  another;  and  to  hold 
good  to  consist  in  the  disposition  to  justice  and  the  practice 
of  it,  and  in  this  to  let  thy  desire  find  its  termination. 

If  this  is  neither  my  own  badness,  nor  an  effect  of  my 
own  badness,  and  the  common  weal  is  not  injured,  why  am  I 
troubled  about  it?  and  what  is  the  harm  to  the  common 
weal? 

Do  not  be  carried  along  inconsiderately  by  the  appear- 
ance of  things,  but  give  help  [to  all]  according  to  thy  ability 
and  their  fitness;  and  if  they  should  have  sustained  loss  in 
matters  which  are  indifferent,  do  not  imagine  this  to  be  a 
damage.  For  it  is  a  bad  habit.  But  as  the  old  man,  when 
he  went  away,  asked  back  his  foster-child's  top,  remembering 
that  it  was  a  top,  so  do  thou  in  this  case  also. 

When  thou  art  calling  out  on  the  Rostra,  hast  thou  for- 
gotten, man,  what  these  things  are? — Yes;  but  they  are 
objects  of  great  concern  to  these  people — wilt  thou  too  then 
be  made  a  fool  for  these  things? — I  was  once  a  fortunate  man, 
but  I  lost  it,  I  know  not  how. — But  fortunate  means  that  a 
man  has  assigned  to  himself  a  good  fortune :  and  a  good  for- 
tune is  good  disposition  of  the  soul,  good  emotions,  good 
actions.^ 

NOTES 

*  In  this  section  there  is  a^play  on  the  meaning  of  6vfiftaivBiv. 

*This  is  the  Stoic  precept  avexov  Kai  ditexov.  The  first  part  teaches 
us  to  be  content  with  men  and  things  as  they  are.  The  second  part 
teaches  us  the  virtue  of  self-restraint,  or  the  government  of  our  pas- 
sions. 

•This  section  is  unintelligible.  Many  of  the  words  may  be  corrupt, 
and  the  general  purport  of  the  section  can  not  be  discovered.  Perhaps 
several  things  have  been  improperly  joined  in  one  section.  I  have 
translated  it  nearly  literally.  Different  translators  give  the  section  a 
different  turn,  and  the  critics  have  tried  to  mend  what  they  can  not 
vmderstand. 


BOOK  VI 

THE  substance  of  the  universe  is  obedient  and  com- 
pliant ;  and  the  reason  which  governs  it  has  in  itself 
no  cause  for  doing  evil,  for  it  has  no  malice,  nor 
does  it  do  evil  to  anything,  nor  is  anything  harmed 
by  it.  But  all  things  are  made  and  perfected  according  to 
this  reason. 

Let  it  make  no  difference  to  thee  whether  thou  art  cold 
or  warm,  if  thou  art  doing  thy  duty;  and  whether  thou  art 
drowsy  or  satisfied  with  sleep;  and  whether  ill-spoken  of  or 
praised;  and  whether  dying  or  doing  something  else.  For 
it  is  one  of  the  acts  of  life,  this  act  by  which  we  die:  it  is 
sufficient  then  in  this  act  also  to  do  well  what  we  have  in 
hand. 

Look  within.  Let  neither  the  peculiar  quality  of  anything 
nor  its  value  escape  thee. 

All  existing  things  soon  change,  and  they  will  either  be 
reduced  to  vapour,  if  indeed  all  substance  is  one,  or  they  will 
be  dispersed. 

The  reason  which  governs  knows  what  its  own  disposi- 
tion is,  and  what  it  does,  and  on  what  material  it  works. 

The  best  way  of  avenging  thyself  is  not  to  become  like 
[the  wrong  doer] . 

Take  pleasure  in  one  thing  and  rest  in  it,  in  passing  from 
one  social  act  to  another  social  act,  thinking  of  God. 

The  ruling  principle  is  that  which  rouses  and  turns  itself, 
and  while  it  makes  itself  such  as  it  is  and  such  as  it  wills  j:o 
be,  it  also  malces  everything  which  happens  appear  to  itself 
to  be  such  as  it  wills. 

In  conformity  to  the  nature  of  the  universe  every  single 
thing  is  accomplished,  for  certainly  it  is  not  in  conformity 
to  any  other  nature  that  each  thing  is  accomplished,  either  a 
nature  which  externally  comprehends  this,  or  a  nature  which 

47 


48  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

is  comprehended  within  this  nature,  or  a  nature  external  and 
independent  of  this. 

The  universe  is  either  a  confusion,  and  a  mutual  involution 
of  things,  and  a  dispersion;  or  it  is  unity,  and  order,  and 
providence.  If  then  it  is  the  former,  why  do  I  desire  to  tarry 
in  a  fortuitous  combination  of  things  and  such  a  disorder? 
and  why  do  I  care  about  anything  else  than  how  I  shall  at 
last  become  earth  ?  and  why  am  I  disturbed,  for  the  disper- 
sion of  my  elements  will  happen  whatever  I  do.  But  if  the 
other  supposition  is  true,  I  venerate,  and  I  am  firm,  and  I 
trust  in  him  who  governs. 

When  thou  hast  been  compelled  by  circumstances  to  be 
disturbed  in  a  manner,  quickly  return  to  thyself  and  do  not 
continue  out  of  tune  longer  than  the  compulsion  lasts;  for 
thou  wilt  have  more  mastery  over  the  harmony  by  contin- 
ually recurring  to  it. 

If  thou  hadst  a  step-mother  and  a  mother  at  the  same 
time,  thou  wouldst  be  dutiful  to  thy  step-mother,  but  still 
thou  wouldst  constantly  return  to  thy  mother.  Let  the  court 
and  philosophy  now  be  to  thee  step-mother  and  mother :  re- 
turn to  philosophy  frequently  and  repose  in  her,  through 
whom  what  thou  meetest  with  in  the  court  appears  to  thee 
tolerable,  and  thou  appearest  tolerable  in  the  court. 

When  we  have  meat  before  us  and  such  eatables,  we  re- 
ceive the  impression,  that  this  is  the  dead  body  of  a  fish,  and 
this  is  the  dead  body  of  a  bird  or  of  a  pig;  and  again,  that 
this  Falernian  is  only  a  little  grape  juice,  and  this  purple  robe 
some  sheep's  wool  dyed  with  the  blood  of  a  shell-fish :  such 
then  are  these  impressions,  and  they  reach  the  things  them- 
selves and  penetrate  them,  and  so  we  see  what  kind  of  things 
they  are.  Just  in  the  same  way  ought  we  to  act  all  through 
life,  and  where  there  are  things  which  appear  most  worthy 
of  our  approbation,  we  ought  to  lay  them  bare  and  look  at 
their  worthlessness  and  strip  them  of  all  the  words  by  which 
they  are  exalted.  For  outward  show  is  a  wonderful  per- 
verter  of  the  reason,  and  when  thou  art  most  sure  that  thou 
art  employed  about  things  worth  thy  pains,  it  is  then  that  it 
cheats  thee  most.  Consider  then  what  Crates  says  of  Xeno- 
crates  himself. 

Most  of  the  things  which  the  multitude  admire  are  re- 


MEDITATIONS  49 

f erred  to  objects  of  the  most  general  kind,  those  which  are 
held  together  by  cohesion  or  natural  organization,  such  as 
stones,  wood,  fig-trees,  vines,  olives.  But  those  which  are  ad- 
mired by  men,  who  are  a  little  more  reasonable,  are  referred 
to  the  things  which  are  held  together  by  a  living  principle,  as 
flocks,  herds.  Those  which  are  admired  by  men  who  are 
still  more  instructed  are  the  things  which  are  held  together 
by  a  rational  soul,  not  however  a  universal  soul,  but  rational 
so  far  as  it  is  a  soul  skilled  in  some  art,  or  expert  in  some 
other  way,  or  simply  rational  so  far  as  it  possesses  a  number 
of  slaves.  But  he  who  values  a  rational  soul,  a  soul  uni- 
versal and  fitted  for  political  life,  regards  nothing  else  except 
this;  and  above  all  things  he  keeps  his  soul  in  a  condition 
and  in  an  activity  conformable  to  reason  and  social  life,  and 
he  co-operates  to  this  end  with  those  who  are  of  the  same 
kind  as  himself. 

Some  things  are  hurrying  into  existence,  and  others  are 
hurrying  out  of  it;  and  of  that  which  is  coming  into  exist- 
ence part  is  already  extinguished.  Motions  and  changes  are 
continually  renewing  the  world,  just  as  the  uninterrupted 
course  of  time  is  always  renewing  the  infinite  duration  of 
ages.  In  this  flowing  stream  then,  on  which  there  is  no 
abiding,  what  is  there  of  the  things  which  hurry  by  on  which 
a  man  would  set  a  high  price?  It  would  be  just  as  if  a  man 
should  fall  in  love  with  one  of  the  sparrows  which  fly  by,  but 
it  has  already  past  out  of  sight.  Something  of  this  kind  is 
the  very  life  of  every  man,  like  the  exhalation  of  the  blood 
and  the  respiration  of  the  air.  For  such  as  it  is  to  have  once 
drawn  in  the  air  and  to  have  given  it  back,  which  we  do  every 
moment,  just  the  same  is  it  with  the  whole  respiratory  power 
which  thou  didst  receive  at  thy  birth  yesterday  and  the  day 
before,  to  give  it  back  to  the  element  from  which  thovt  didst 
first  draw  it. 

Neither  is  transpiration,  as  in  plants,  a  thing  to  be  valued, 
nor  respiration,  as  in  domesticated  animals  and  wild  beasts, 
nor  the  receiving  of  impressions  by  the  appearances  of  things, 
nor  being  moved  by  desires  as  puppets  by  strings,  nor  as- 
sembling in  herds,  nor  being  nourished  by  food ;  for  this  is 
just  like  the  act  of  separating  and  parting  with  the  useless 
part  of  our  food.     What  then  is  worth  being  valued?     To 


5o  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

be  received  with  clapping  of  hands  ?  No.  Neither  must  we 
value  the  clapping  of  tongues,  for  the  praise  which  comes 
from  the  many  is  a  clapping  of  tongues.  Suppose  then  that 
thou  hast  given  up  this  worthless  thing  called  fame,  what 
remains  that  is  worth  valuing?  This  in  my  opinion,  to  move 
thyself  and  to  restrain  thyself  in  conformity  to  thy  proper 
constitution,  to  which  end  both  all  employments  and  arts 
lead.  For  every  art  aims  at  this,  that  the  thing  which  has 
been  made  should  be  adapted  to  the  work  for  which  it  has 
been  made;  and  both  the  vine-planter  who  looks  after  the 
vine,  and  the  horse-breaket,  and  he  who  trains  the  dog,  seek 
this  end.  But  the  education  and  the  teaching  of  youth  aim 
at  something.  In  this  then  is  the  value  of  the  education  and 
the  teaching.  And  if  this  is  well,  thou  wilt  not  seek  any- 
thing else.  Wilt  thou  not  cease  to  value  many  other  things 
too?  Then  thou  wilt  be  neither  free,  nor  sufficient  for  thy 
own  happiness,  nor  without  passion.  For  of  necessity  thou 
must  be  envious,  jealous,  and  suspicious  of  those  who  can 
take  away  those  things,  and  plot  against  those  who  have  that 
which  is  valued  by  thee.  Of  necessity  a  man  must  be  alto- 
gether in  a  state  of  perturbation  who  wants  any  of  these 
things;  and  besides,  he  must  often  find  fault  with  the  gods. 
But  to  reverence  and  honour  thy  own  mind  will  make  thee 
content  with  thyself,  and  in  harmony  with  society,  and  in 
agreement  with  the  gods,  that  is,  praising  all  that  they  give 
and  have  ordered. 

Above,  below,  all  around  are  the  movements  of  the 
elements.  But  the  motion  of  virtue  is  in  none  of  these :  it  is 
something  more  divine,  and  advancing  by  a  way  hardly  ob- 
served it  goes  happily  on  its  road. 

How  strangely  men  act.  They  will  not  praise  those  who 
are  living  at  the  same  time  and  living  with  themselves ;  but 
to  be  themselves  praised  by  posterity,  by  those  whom  they 
have  never  seen  or  ever  will  see,  this  they  set  much  value  on. 
But  this  is  very  much  the  same  as  if  thou  shouldst  be  grieved 
because  those  who  have  lived  before  thee  did  not  praise  thee. 

If  a  thing  is  difficult  to  be  accomplished  by  thyself,  do  not 
think  that  it  is  impossible  for  man  :  but  if  anything  is  possible 
for  man  and  conformable  to  his  nature,  think  that  this  can  be 
attained  by  thyself  too. 


MEDITATIONS  5 1 

In  the  gymnastic  exercises  suppose  that  a  man  has  torn 
thee  with  his  nails,  and  by  dashing  against  thy  head  has 
inflicted  a  wound.  Well,  we  neither  show  any  signs  of 
vexation,  nor  are  we  offended,  nor  do  we  suspect  him  after- 
wards as  a  treacherous  fellow ;  and  yet  we  are  on  our  guard 
against  him,  not  however  as  an  enemy,  nor  yet  with  sus- 
picion, but  we  quietly  get  out  of  his  way.  Something  like 
this  let  thy  behaviour  be  in  all  the  other  parts  of  life ;  let  us 
overlook  many  things  in  those  who  are  like  antagonists  in 
the  gymnasium.  For  it  is  in  our  power,  as  I  said,  to  get  out 
of  the  way,  and  to  have  no  suspicion  nor  hatred. 

If  any  man  is  able  to  convince  me  and  show  me  that  I  do 
not  think  or  act  rightly,  I  will  gladly  change ;  for  I  seek  the 
truth  by  which  no  man  was  ever  injured.  But  he  is  injured 
who  abides  in  his  error  and  ignorance. 

I  do  my  duty :  other  things  trouble  me  not ;  for  they  are 
either  things  without  life,  or  things  without  reason,  or  things 
that  have  rambled  and  know  not  the  way. 

As  to  the  animals  which  have  no  reason  and  generally  all 
things  and  objects,  do  thou,  since  thou  hast  reason  and  they 
have  none,  make  use  of  them  with  a  generous  and  liberal 
spirit.  But  towards  human  beings,  as  they  have  reason,  be- 
have in  a  social  spirit.  And  on  all  occasions  call  on  the  gods, 
and  do  not  perplex  thyself  about  the  length  of  time  in  which 
thou  shalt  do  this;  for  even  three  hours  so  spent  are  suffi- 
cient. 

Alexander  the  Macedonian  and  his  groom  by  death  were 
brought  to  the  same  state;  for  either  they  were  received 
among  the  same  seminal  principles  of  the  universe,  or  they 
were  alike  dispersed  among  the  atoms. 

Consider  how  many  things  in  the  same  indivisible  time 
take  place  in  each  of  us,  things  which  concern  the  body  and 
things  which  concern  the  soul :  and  so  thou  wilt  not  wonder 
if  many  more  things,  or  rather  all  things  which  come  into 
existence  in  that  which  is  the  one  and  all,  which  we  call 
Cosmos,  exist  in  it  at  the  same  time. 

If  any  man  should  propose  to  thee  the  question,  how  the 
name  Antoninus  is  written,  wouldst  thou  with  a  straining 
of  the  voice  utter  each  letter?  What  then  if  they  grow 
angry,  wilt  thou  be  angry  too?     Wilt  thou  not  go  on  with 


5-2  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

composure  and  number  every  letter?  Just  so  then  in  this 
life  also  remember  that  every  duty  is  made  up  of  certain 
parts..  These  it  is  thy  duty  to  observe  and  without  being 
disturbed  or  showing  anger  towards  those  who  are  angry 
with  thee  to  go  on  thy  way  and  finish  that  which  is  set  be- 
fore thee. 

How  cruel  it  is  not  to  allow  men  to  strive  after  the  things 
which  appear  to  them  to  be  suitable  to  their  nature  and  profit- 
able !  And  yet  in  a  manner  thou  dost  not  allow  them  to  do 
this,  when  thou  art  vexed  because  they  do  wrong.  For  they 
are  certainly  moved  towards  things  because  they  suppose 
them  to  be  suitable  to  their  nature  and  profitable  to  them — 
But  it  is  not  so — Teach  them  then,  and  show  them  without 
being  angry. 

Death  is  a  cessation  of  the  impressions  through  the  senses, 
and  of  the  pulling  of  the  strings  which  move  the  appetites, 
and  of  the  discursive  movements  of  the  thoughts,  and  of  the 
service  to  the  flesh. 

It  is  a  shame  for  the  soul  to  be  first  to  give  way  in  this 
life,  when  thy  body  does  not  give  way. 

Take  care  that  thou  art  not  made  into  a  Caesar,  that  thou 
art  not  dyed  with  this  dye;  for  such  things  happen.  Keep 
thyself  then  simple,  good,  pure,  serious,  free  from  affecta- 
tion, a  friend  of  justice,  a  worshipper  of  the  gods,  kind,  af- 
fectionate, strenuous  in  all  proper  acts.  Strive  to  continue  to 
be  such  as  philosophy  wished  to  make  thee.  Reverence  the 
gods,  and  help  men.  Short  is  life.  There  is  only  one  fruit 
of  this  earthly  life,  a  pious  disposition  and  social  acts.  Do 
everything  as  a  disciple  of  Antoninus.  Remember  his  con- 
stancy in  every  act  which  was  conformable  to  reason,  and  his 
evenness  in  all  things,  and  his  piety,  and  the  serenity  of  his 
countenance,  and  his  sweetness,  and  his  disregard  of  empty 
fame,  and  his  efforts  to  understand  things;  and  how  he 
would  never  let  anything  pass  without  having  first  most 
carefully  examined  it  and  clearly  understood  it ;  and  how  he 
bore  with  those  who  blamed  him  unjustly  without  blaming 
them  in  return ;  how  he  did  nothing  in  a  hurry ;  and  how  he 
listened  not  to  calumnies,  and  how  exact  an  examiner  of 
manners  and  actions  he  was ;  and  not  given  to  reproach  peo- 
ple, nor  timid,  nor  suspicious,  nor  a  sophist;  and  with  how 


MEDITATIONS  53 

little  he  was  satisfied,  such  as  lodging,  bed,  dress,  food,  ser- 
vants ;  and  how  laborious  and  patient ;  and  how  he  was  able 
on  account  of  his  sparing  diet  to  hold  out  to  the  evening,  not 
even  requiring  to  relieve  himself  by  any  evacuations  except 
at  the  usual  hour;  and  his  firmness  and  uniformity  in  his 
friendships ;  and  how  he  tolerated  freedom  of  speech  in  those 
who  opposed  his  opinions ;  and  the  pleasure  that  he  had  when 
any  man  showed  him  anything  better ;  and  how  religious  he 
was  without  superstition.  Imitate  all  this  that  thou  mayest 
have  as  good  a  conscience,  as  he  had,  when  thy  last  hour 
comes. 

Return  to  thy  sober  senses  and  call  thyself  back;  and 
when  thou  hast  roused  thyself  from  sleep  and  hast  perceived 
that  they  were  only  dreams  which  troubled  thee,  now  in  thy 
waking  hours  look  at  these  [the  things  about  thee]  as  thou 
didst  look  at  those  [the  dreams]. 

I  consist  of  a  little  body  and  a  soul.  Now  to  this  little  body 
all  things  are  indifferent,  for  it  is  not  able  to  perceive  differ- 
ences. But  to  the  understanding  those  things  only  are  in- 
different, which  are  not  the  works  of  its  own  activity.  But 
whatever  things  are  the  works  of  its  own  activity,  all  these 
are  in  its  power.  And  of  these  however  only  those  which 
are  done  with  reference  to  the  present ;  for  as  to  the  future 
and  the  past  activities  of  the  mind,  even  these  are  for  the 
present  indifferent. 

Neither  the  labour  which  the  hand  does  nor  that  of  the 
foot  is  contrary  to  nature,  so  long  as  the  foot  does  the  foot's 
work  and  the  hand  the  hand's.  So  then  neither  to  a  man  as 
a  man  is  his  labour  contrary  to  nature,  so  long  as  it  does  the 
things  of  a  man.  But  if  the  labour  is  not  contrary  to  his 
nature,  neither  is  it  an  evil  to  him. 

How  many  pleasures  have  been  enjoyed  by  robbers, 
patricides,  tyrants. 

Dost  thou  not  see  how  the  handicraftsmen  accommodate 
themselves  up  to  a  certain  point  to  those  who  are  not  skilled 
in  their  craft, — nevertheless  they  cling  to  the  reason  [the 
principles]  of  their  art  and  do  not  endure  to  depart  from  it  ? 
Is  it  not  strange  if  the  architect  and  the  physician  shall  have 
more  respect  to  the  reason  [the  principles]  of  their  own  arts 


54  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

than  man  to  his  own  reason,  which  is  common  to  him  and 
the  gods  ? 

Asia,  Europe  are  corners  of  the  universe :  all  the  sea  a  drop 
in  the  universe ;  Athos  a  little  clod  of  the  universe :  all  the 
present  time  is  a  point  in  eternity.  All  things  are  little, 
changeable,  perishable.  All  things  come  from  thence,  from 
that  universal  ruling  power  either  directly  proceeding  or  by 
way  of  sequence.  And  accordingly  the  lion's  gaping  jaws, 
and  that  which  is  poisonous,  and  every  harmful  thing,  as  a 
thorn,  as  mud,  are  after-products  of  the  grand  and  the  beau- 
tiful. Do  not  then  imagine  that  they  are  of  another  kind 
from  that  which  thou  dost  venerate,  but  form  a  just  opinion 
of  the  source  of  all. 

He  who  has  seen  present  things  has  seen  all,  both  every- 
thing which  has  taken  place  from  all  eternity  and  everything 
which  will  be  for  time  without  end ;  for  all  things  are  of  one 
kin  and  of  one  form. 

Frequently  consider  the  connection  of  all  things  in  the 
universe  and  their  relation  to  one  another.  For  in  a  manner 
all  things  are  implicated  with  one  another,  and  all  in  this  way 
are  friendly  to  one  another;  for  one  thing  comes  in  order 
after  another,  and  this  is  by  virtue  of  the*  active  movement 
and  mutual  conspiration  and  the  unity  of  the  substance. 

Adapt  thyself  to  the  things  with  which  thy  lot  has  been 
cast :  and  the  men  among  whom  thou  hast  received  thy  por- 
tion, love  them,  and  do  it  truly  [sincerely]. 

Every  instrument,  tool,  vessel,  if  it  does  that  for  which 
it  has  been  made,  is  well,  and  yet  he  who  made  it  is  not  there. 
But  in  the  things  which  are  held  together  by  nature  there  is 
within  and  there  abides  in  them  the  power  which  made  them ; 
wherefore  the  more  is  it  fit  to  reverence  this  power,  and  to 
think,  that,  if  thou  dost  live  and  act  according  to  its  will, 
everything  in  thee  is  in  conformity  to  intelligence.  And 
thus  also  in  the  universe  the  things  which  belong  to  it  are  in 
conformity  to  intelligence. 

Whatever  of  the  things  which  are  not  within  thy  power 
thou  shalt  suppose  to  be  good  for  thee  or  evil,  it  must  of 
necessity  be  that,  if  such  a  bad  thing  befall  thee  or  the  loss  of 
such  a  good  thing,  thou  wilt  blame  the  gods,  and  hate  men 
too,  those  who  are  the  cause  of  the  misfortune  or  the  loss,  or 


MEDITATIONS  55 

those  who  are  suspected  of  being  likely  to  be  the  cause ;  and 
indeed  we  do  much  injustice,  because  we  make  a  difference 
between  these  things  [because  we  do  not  regard  these  things 
as  indifferent*].  But  if  we  judge  only  those  things  which 
are  in  our  power  to  be  good  or  bad,  there  remains  no  reason 
either  for  finding  fault  with  god  or  standing  in  a  hostile  at- 
titude to  man.^ 

We  are  all  working  together  to  one  end,  some  with  knowl- 
edge and  design,  and  others  without  knowing  what  they  do ; 
as  men  also  when  they  are  asleep,  of  whom  it  is  Heraclitus, 
I  think,  who  says  that  they  are  labourers  and  co-operators  in 
the  things  which  take  place  in  the  universe.  But  men  co- 
operate after  different  fashions;  and  even  those  co-operate 
abundantly,  who  find  fault  with  what  happens  and  those  who 
try  to  oppose  it  and  to  hinder  it ;  for  the  universe  has  need 
even  of  such  men  as  these.  It  remains  then  for  thee  to  un- 
derstand among  what  kind  of  workmen  thou  placest  thyself ; 
for  he  who  rules  all  things  will  certainly  make  a  right  use  of 
thee,  and  he  will  receive  thee  among  some  part  of  the  co- 
operators  and  of  those  whose  labours  conduce  to  one  end. 
But  be  not  thou  such  a  part  as  the  mean  and  ridiculous  verse 
in  the  play,  which  Chrysippus  speaks  of .^ 

Does  the  sun  undertake  to  do -the  work  of  the  rain,  or 
^sculapius  the  work  of  the  Fruit-bearer  [the  earth]  ?  And 
how  is  it  with  respect  to  each  of  the  stars,  are  they  not  differ- 
ent and  yet  they  work  together  to  the  same  end  ? 

If  the  gods  have  determined  about  me  and  about  the  things 
which  must  happen  to  me,  they  have  determined  well,  for  it  is 
not  easy  even  to  imagine  a  deity  without  forethought; 
and  as  to  doing  me  harm,  why  should  they  have  any  desire 
towards  that  ?  for  what  advantage  would  result  to  them  from 
this  or  to  the  whole,  which  is  the  special  object  of  their  pro- 
vidence? But  if  they  have  not  determined  about  me  in- 
dividually, they  have  certainly  determined  about  the  whole  at 
least,  and  the  things  which  happen  by  way  of  sequence  in  this 
general  arrangement  I  ought  to  accept  with  pleasure  and  to 
be  content  with  them.  But  if  they  determine  about  nothing 
— which  it  is  wicked  to  believe,  or  if  we  do  believe  it,  let  us 
neither  sacrifice,  nor  pray,  nor  swear  by  them,  nor  do  any- 
thing else  which  we  do  as  if  the  gods  were  present  and 
29 


56  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

lived  with  us — but  if  however  the  gods  determine  about 
none  of  the  things  which  concern  us,  I  am  able  to  determine 
about  myself,  and  I  can  inquire  about  that  which  is  useful : 
and  that  is  useful  to  every  man  which  is  conformable  to  his 
own  constitution  and  nature.  But  my  nature  is  rational  and 
social ;  and  my  city  and  country,  so  far  as  I  am  Antoninus,  is 
Rome,  but  so  far  as  I  am  a  man,  it  is  the  world.  The  things 
then  which  are  useful  to  these  cities  are  alone  useful  to  me. 

Whatever  happens  to  every  man,  this  is  for  the  interest 
of  the  universal :  this  might  be  sufficient.  But  further  thou 
wilt  observe  this  also  as  a  general  truth,  if  thou  dost  observe, 
that  whatever  is  profitable  to  any  man  is  profitable  also  to 
other  men.  But  let  the  word  profitable  be  taken  here  in  the 
common  sense  as  said  of  things  of  the  middle  kind  [neither 
good  nor  bad]. 

As  it  happens  to  thee  in  the  amphitheatre  and  such  places, 
that  the  continual  sight  of  the  same  things  and  the  uniform- 
ity make  the  spectacle  wearisome,  so  it  is  in  the  whole  of  life ; 
for  all  things  above,  below,  are  the  same  and  from  the  same. 
How  long  then  ? 

Think  continually  that  all  kinds  of  men  and  of  all  kinds 
of  pursuits  and  of  all  nations  are  dead,  so  that  thy  thoughts 
come  down  even  to  Philistion  and  Phoebus  and  Origanion. 
Now  turn  thy  thoughts  to  the  other  kinds  [of  men].  To 
that  place  then  we  must  remove,  where  there  are  so  many 
great  orators,  and  so  many  noble  philosophers,  Heraclitus, 
Pythagoras,  Socrates;  so  many  heroes  of  former  days,  and 
so  many  generals  after  them,  and  tyrants;  besides  these, 
Eudoxus,  Hipparchus,  Archimedes,  and  other  men  of  acute 
natural  talents,  great  minds,  lovers  of  labour,  versatile,  con- 
fident, mockers  even  of  the  perishable  and  ephemeral  life  of 
man,  as  Menippus  and  such  as  are  like  him.  As  to  all  these 
consider  that  they  have  long  been  in  the  dust.  What  harm 
then  is  this  to  them;  and  what  to  those  whose  names  are 
altogether  unknown  ?  One  thing  here  is  worth  a  great  deal, 
to  pass  thy  life  in  truth  and  justice,  with  a  benevolent  dispo- 
sition even  to  liars  and  unjust  men. 

When  thou  wishest  to  delight  thyself,  think  of  the  virtues 
of  those  who  live  with  thee ;  for  instance,  the  activity  of  one, 
and  the  modesty  of  another,  and  the  liberality  of  a  third,  and 


MEDITATIONS  5/ 

some  other  good  quality  of  a  fourth.  For  nothing  delights 
so  much  as  the  examples  of  the  virtues,  when  th^  are  ex- 
hibited in  the  morals  of  those  who  live  with  us  and  present 
themselves  in  abundance,  as  far  as  is  possible.  Wherefore 
we  must  keep  them  before  us. 

Thou  art  not  dissatisfied,  I  suppose,  because  thou  weighest 
only  so  many  litrae  and  not  three  hundred.  Be  not  dissatis- 
fied then  that  thou  must  live  only  so  many  years  and  not 
more ;  for  as  thou  are  satisfied  with  the  amount  of  substance 
which  has  been  assigned  to  thee,  so  be  content  with  the 
time. 

Let  us  try  to  persuade  them  [men],  but  act  even  against 
their  will,  when  the  principles  of  justice  lead  that  way.  If 
however  any  man  by  using  force  stands  in  thy  way,  betake 
thyself  to  contentment  and  tranquillity,  and  at  the  same  time 
employ  the  hindrance  towards  the  exercise  of  some  other 
virtue;  and  remember  that  thy  attempt  was  with  a  reserva- 
tion [conditionally],  that  thou  didst  not  desire  to  do  impossi- 
bilities. What  then  didst  thou  desire? — Some  such  effort 
as  this — But  thou  attainest  thy  object,  if  the  things  to  which 
thou  wast  moved  are  [not]  accomplished.* 

He  who  loves  fame  considers  another  man's  activity  to 
be  his  own  good ;  and  he  who  loves  pleasure,  his  own  sensa- 
tions ;  but  he  who  has  understanding,  considers  his  own  acts 
to  be  his  own  good. 

It  is  in  our  power  to  have  no  opinion  about  a  thing,  and 
not  to  be  disturbed  in  our  soul ;  for  things  themselves  have 
no  natural  power  to  form  our  judgments. 

Accustom  thyself  to  attend  carefully  to  what  is  said  by 
another,  and  as  much  as  it  is  possible,  be  in  the  speaker's 
mind. 

That  which  is  not  good  for  the  swarm,  neither  is  it  good 
for  the  bee. 

If  sailors  abused  the  helmsman  or  the  sick  the  doctor, 
would  they  listen  to  anybody  else;  or  how  could  the  helms- 
man secure  the  safety  of  those  in  the  ship  or  the  doctor  the 
health  of  those  whom  he  attends  ? 

How  many  together  with  whom  I  came  into  the  world  are 
already  gone  out  of  it. 

To  the  jaundiced  honey  tastes  bitter,  and  to  those  bitten  by 


58  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

mad  dogs  water  causes  fear ;  and  to  little  children  the  ball  is  a 
fine  thing.  Why  then  am  I  angry  ?  Dost  thou  think  that  a 
false  opinion  has  less  power  than  the  bile  in  the  jaundiced 
or  the  poison  in  him  who  is  bitten  by  a  mad  dog  ? 

No  man  will  hinder  thee  from  living  according  to  the  rea- 
son of  thy  own  nature :  nothing  will  happen  to  thee  contrary 
to  the  reason  of  the  universal  nature. 

What  kind  of  people  are  those  whom  men  wish  to  please, 
and  for  what  objects,  and  by  what  kind  of  acts?  How  soon 
will  time  cover  all  things,  and  how  many  it  has  covered 
already. 

KOTES 

•  Cicero,  De  Natura  Deorum,  in,  32. 

•  Plutarch,  adversus  Stoicos,  c  14. 


BOOK  VII 

WHAT  is  badness ?  It  is  that  which  thou  hast  often 
seen.  And  on  the  occasion  of  everything  which 
happens,  keep  this  in  mind,  that  it  is  that  which 
thou  hast  often  seen.  Everywhere  up  and  down 
thou  wilt  find  the  same  things,  with  which  the  old  histories 
are  filled,  those  of  the  middle  ages  and  those  of  our  own  day ; 
with  which  cities  and  houses  are  filled  now.  There  is  noth- 
ing new :  all  things  are  both  familiar  and  short-lived. 

How  can  our  principles  become  dead,  unless  the  impres- 
sions [thoughts]  which  correspond  to  them  are  extin- 
guished? But  it  is  in  thy  power  continuously  to  fan  these 
thoughts  into  a  flame.  I  can  have  that  opinion  about  any- 
thing, which  I  ought  to  have.  If  I  can,  why  am  I  disturbed  ? 
The  things  which  are  external  to  my  mind  have  no  relation 
at  all  to  my  mind. — Let  this  be  the  state  of  thy  affects,  and 
thou  standest  erect.  To  recover  thy  life  is  in  thy  power. 
Look  at  things  again  as  thou  didst  use  to  look  at  them ;  for 
in  this  consists  the  recovery  of  thy  life. 

The  idle  business  of  show,  plays  on  the  stage,  flocks  of 
sheep,  herds,  exercises  with  spears,  a  bone  cast  to  little  dogs, 
a  bit  of  bread  into  fish-ponds,  labourings  of  ants  and  burden- 
carrying,  runnings  about  of  frightened  little  mice,  puppets 
pulled  by  strings — [all  alike].  It  is  thy  duty  then  in  the 
midst  of  such  things  to  show  good  humour  and  not  a  proud 
air;  to  understand  however  that  every  man  is  worth  just 
so  much  as  the  things  are  worth  about  which  he  busies  him- 
self. 

In  discourse  thou  must  attend  to  what  is  said,  and  in  every 
movement  thou  must  observe  what  is  doing.  And  in  the 
one  thou  shouldst  see  immediately  to  what  end  it  refers,  but 
in  the  other  watch  carefully  what  is  the  thing  signified. 

Is  my  understanding  sufficient  for  this  or  not?     If  it  is 

59 


6o  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

sufficient,  I  use  it  for  the  work  as  an  instrument  given  by  the 
universal  nature.  But  if  it  is  not  sufficient,  then  either  I 
retire  from  the  work  and  give  way  to  him  who  is  able  to  do 
it  better,  unless  there  be  some  reason  why  I  ought  not  to  do 
so;  or  I  do  it  as  well  as  I  can,  taking  to  help  me  the  man 
who  with  the  aid  of  my  ruling  principle  can  do  what  is  now 
fit  and  useful  for  the  general  good.  For  whatsoever  either 
by  myself  or  with  another  I  can  do,  ought  to  be  directed  to 
this  only,  to  that  which  is  useful  and  well  suited  to  society. 

How  many  after  being  celebrated  by  fame  have  been  given 
up  to  oblivion ;  and  how  many  who  have  celebrated  the  fame 
of  others  have  long  been  dead. 

Be  not  ashamed  to  be  helped ;  for  it  is  thy  business  to  do 
thy  duty  like  a  soldier  in  the  assault  on  a  town.  How  then, 
if  being  lame  thou  canst  not  mount  up  on  the  battlements 
alone,  but  with  the  help  of  another  it  is  possible? 

Let  not  future  things  disturb  thee,  for  thou  wilt  come 
to  them,  if  it  shall  be  necessary,  having  with  thee  the  same 
reason  which  now  thou  usest  for  present  things. 

All  things  are  implicated  with  one  another,  and  the  bond 
is  holy;  and  there  is  hardly  anything  unconnected  with  any 
other  thing.  For  things  have  been  co-ordinated,  and  they 
combine  to  form  the  same  universe  [order].  For  there  is 
one  universe  made  up  of  all  things,  and  one  god  who  per- 
vades all  things,  and  one  substance,  and  one  law,  [one]  com- 
mon reason  in  all  intelligent  animals,  and  one  truth ;  if 
indeed  there  is  also  one  perfection  for  all  animals  which  are 
of  the  same  stock  and  participate  in  the  same  reason. 

Everything  material  soon  disappears  in  the  substance  of 
the  whole;  and  everything  formal  [causal]  is  very  soon 
taken  back  into  the  universal  reason;  and  the  memory  of 
everything  is  very  soon  overwhelmed  in  time. 

To  the  rational  animal  the  same  act  is  according  to  nature 
and  according  to  reason. 

Be  thou  erect,  or  be  made  erect. 

Just  as  it  is  with  the  members  in  those  bodies  which  are 
united  in  one,  so  it  is  with  rational  beings  which  exist  sep- 
arately, for  they  have  been  constituted  for  one  co-operation. 
And  the  perception  of  this  will  be  more  apparent  to  thee,  if 
thou  often  sayest  to  thyself  that  I  am  a  member  [  jue^o?  ]  of 


MEDITATIONS  6 1 

the  system  of  rational  beings.  But  if  [using  the  letter  r] 
thou  sayest  that  thou  art  a  part  [Mepoi] ,  thou  dost  not  yet  love 
men  from  thy  heart ;  beneficence  does  not  yet  delight  thee  for 
its  own  sake;  thou  still  doest  it  barely  as  a  thing  of  pro- 
priety-, and  not  yet  as  doing  good  to  thyself. 

Let  there  fall  externally  what  will  on  the  parts  which  can 
feel  the  effects  of  this  fall.  For  those  parts  which  have  felt 
will  complain,  if  they  choose.  But  I,  unless  I  think  that 
what  has  happened  is  an  evil,  am  not  injured.  And  it  is  in 
my  power  not  to  think  so. 

Whatever  any  one  does  or  says,  I  must  be  good,  just 
as  if  the  gold,  or  the  emerald,  or  the  purple  were  always  say- 
ing this.  Whatever  any  one  does  or  says,  I  must  be  emerald 
and  keep  my  colour. 

The  ruling  faculty  does  not  disturb  itself;  I  mean,  does 
not  frighten  itself  or  cause  itself  pain.*  But  if  any  one  else 
can  frighten  or  pain  it,  let  him  do  so.  For  the  faculty  itself 
will  not  by  its  own  opinion  turn  itself  into  such  ways.  Let 
the  body  itself  take  care,  if  it  can,  that  it  suffer  nothing,  and 
let  it  speak,  if  it  suffers.  But  the  soul  itself,  that  which  is 
subject  to  fear,  to  pain,  which  has  completely  the  power  of 
forming  an  opinion  about  these  things,  will  suffer  nothing, 
for  it  will  never  deviate*  into  such  a  judgment.  The  lead- 
ing principle  in  itself  wants  nothing,  unless  it  makes  a  want 
for  itself;  and  therefore  it  is  both  free  from  perturbation 
and  unimpeded,  if  it  does  not  disturb  and  impede  itself. 

Eudaemonia  [happiness]  is  a  good  daemon,  or  a  good 
thing.  What  then  art  thou  doing  here,  O  imagination?  go 
away,  I  entreat  thee  by  the  gods,  as  thou  didst  come,  for  I 
want  thee  not.  But  thou  art  come  according  to  thy  old 
fashion.     I  am  not  angry  with  thee :  only  go  away. 

Is  any  man  afraid  of  change?  Why  what  can  take  place 
without  change  ?  What  then  is  more  pleasing  or  more  suit- 
able to  the  universal  nature?  And  canst  thou  take  a  bath 
unless  the  wood  undergoes  a  change  ?  and  canst  thou  be  nour- 
ished, unless  the  food  undergoes  a  change?  And  can  any- 
thing else  that  is  useful  be  accomplished  without  change? 
Dost  thou  not  see  then  that  for  thyself  also  to  change  is  just 
the  same,  and  equally  necessary  for  the  universal  nature? 

Through  the  universal  substance  as  through  a  furious 


62  •  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

torrent  all  bodies  are  carried,  being  by  their  nature  united 
with  and  co-operating  with  the  whole,  as  the  parts  of  our 
body  with  one  another.  How  many  a  Chrysippus,  how 
many  a  Socrates,  how  many  an  Epictetus  has  time  already 
swallowed  up  ?  And  let  the  same  thought  occur  to  thee  with 
reference  to  every  man  and  thing. 

One  thing  only  troubles  me,  lest  I  should  do  something 
which  the  constitution  of  man  does  not  allow,  or  in  the  way 
which  it  does  not  allow,  or  what  it  does  not  allow  now. 

Near  is  thy  forgetfulness  of  all  things ;  and  near  the  for- 
getfulness  of  thee  by  all. 

It  is  peculiar  to  man  to  love  even  those  who  do  wrong. 
And  this  happens,  if  when  they  do  wrong  it  occurs  to  thee 
that  they  are  kinsmen,  and  that  they  do  wrong  through 
ignorance  and  unintentionally,  and  that  soon  both  of  you  will 
die;  and  above  all,  that  the  wrong-doer  has  done  thee  no 
harm,  for  he  has  not  made  thy  ruling  faculty  worse  than  it 
was  before. 

The  universal  nature  out  of  the  universal  substance,  as 
if  it  were  wax,  now  moulds  a  horse,  and  when  it  has  broken 
this  up,  it  uses  the  material  for  a  tree,  then  for  a  man,  then 
for  something  else;  and  each  of  these  things  subsists  for  a 
very  short  time.  But  it  is  no  hardship  for  the  vessel  to  be 
broken  up,  just  as  there  was  none  in  its  being  fastened  to- 
gether. 

A  scowling  look  is  altogether  unnatural ;  when  it  is  often 
assumed,^  the  result  is  that  all  comeliness  dies  away,  and  at 
last  is  so  completely  extinguished  that  it  can  not  be  again 
lighted  up  at  all.  Try  to  conclude  from  this  very  fact  that 
it  is  contrary  to  reason.  For  if  even  the  perception  of  doing 
wrong  shall  depart,  what  reason  is  there  for  living  any 
longer  ? 

Nature  which  governs  the  whole  will  soon  change  all 
things  which  thou  seest,  and  out  of  their  substance  will  make 
other  things,  and  again  other  things  from  the  substance  of 
them,  in  order  that  the  world  may  be  ever  new. 

When  a  man  has  done  thee  any  wrong,  immediately  con- 
sider with  what  opinion  about  good  or  evil  he  has  done 
wrong.  For  when  thou  hast  seen  this,  thou  wilt  pity  him, 
and  wilt  neither  wonder  nor  be  angry.     For  either  thou  thy- 


MEDITATIONS  63 

self  thinkest  the  same  thing  to  be  good  that  he  does  or 
another  thing  of  the  same  kind.  It  is  thy  duty  then  to  par- 
don him.  But  if  thou  dost  not  think  such  things  to  be  good 
or  evil,  thou  wilt  more  readily  be  well  disposed  to  him  who  is 
in  error. 

Think  not  so  much  of  what  thou  hast  not  as  of  what 
thou  hast :  but  of  the  things  which  thou  hast  select  the  best, 
and  then  reflect  how  eagerly  they  would  have  been  sought,  if 
thou  hadst  them  not.  At  the  same  time  however  take  care 
that  thou  dost  not  through  being  so  pleased  with  them  ac- 
custom thyself  to  overvalue  them,  so  as  to  be  disturbed  if 
ever  thou  shouldst  not  have  them. 

Retire  into  thyself.  The  rational  principle  which  rules 
has  this  nature,  that  it  is  content  with  itself  when  it  does 
what  is  just,  and  so  secures  tranquillity. 

Wipe  out  the  imagination.  Stop  the  pulling  of  the  strings. 
Confine  thyself  to  the  present.  Understand  well  what  hap- 
pens either  to  thee  or  to  another.  Divide  and  distribute 
every  object  into  the  causal  [formal]  and  the  material. 
Think  of  thy  last  hour.  Let  the  wrong  which  is  done  by  a 
man  stay  there  where  the  wrong  was  done. 

Direct  thy  attention  to  what  is  said.  Let  thy  understand- 
ing enter  into  the  things  that  are  doing  and  the  things  which 
do  them. 

Adorn  thyself  with  simplicity  and  modesty  and  with  in- 
difference towards  the  things  which  lie  between  virtue  and 
vice.  Love  mankind.  Follow  God.  The  poet  says  that 
Law  rules  all — *  And  it  is  enough  to  remember  that  law 
rules  all.^ — * 

About  death:  whether  it  is  a  dispersion,  or  a  resolution 
into  atoms,  or  annihilation,  it  is  either  extinction  or  change. 

About  pain:  the  pain  which  is  intolerable  carries  us  off; 
but  that  which  lasts  a  long  time  is  tolerable;  and  the  mind 
maintains  its  own  tranquillity  by  retiring  into  itself,*  and  the 
ruling  faculty  is  not  made  worse.  But  the  parts  which  are 
harmed  by  pain,  let  them,  if  they  can,  give  their  opinion 
about  it. 

About  fame:  look  at  the  minds  [of  those  who  seek  fame], 

observe  what  they  are,  and  what  kind  of  things  they  avoid, 

and  what  kind  of  things  they  pursue.     And  consider  that  as 
30 


64  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

the  heaps  of  sand  piled  on  one  another  hide  the  former  sands, 
so  in  life  the  events  which  go  before  are  soon  covered  by 
those  which  come  after. 

From  Plato  :^  the  man  who  has  an  elevated  mind  and  takes 
a  view  of  all  time  and  of  all  substance,  dost  thou  suppose  it 
possible  for  him  to  think  that  human  life  is  anything  great  ? 
it  is  not  possible,  he  said. — Such  a  man  then  will  think  that 
death  also  is  no  evil — Certainly  not. 

From  Antisthenes :  It  is  royal  to  do  good  and  to  be  abused. 

It  is  a  base  thing  for  the  countenance  to  be  obedient  and 
to  regulate  and  compose  itself  as  the  mind  commands, and  for 
the  mind  not  to  be  regulated  and  composed  by  itself. 

It  is  not  right  to  vex  ourselves  at  things. 

For  they  care  nought  about  it.* 

To  the  immortal  gods  and  us  give  joy. 

Life  must  be  reaped  like  the  ripe  ears  of  corn : 

One  man  is  born ;  another  dies." 

If  gods  care  not  for  me  and  for  my  children. 

There  is  a  reason  for  it. 

For  the  good  is  with  me,  and  the  just.' 

No  joining  others  in  their  wailing,  no  violent  emotion. 

From  Plato  'J  But  I  would  make  this  man  a  sufficient 
answer,  which  is  this :  Thou  sayest  not  well,  if  thou  think- 
est  that  a  man  who  is  good  for  anything  at  all  ought  to  com- 
pute the  hazard  of  life  or  death,  and  should  not  rather  look 
to  this  only  in  all  that  he  does,  whether  he  is  doing  what  is 
just  or  unjust,  and  the  works  of  a  good  or  a  bad  man. 

For  thus  it  is,  men  of  Athens,'^  in  truth :  wherever  a  man 
has  placed  himself  thinking  it  the  best  place  for  him,  or  has 
been  placed  by  a  commander,  there  in  my  opinion  he  ought 
to  stay  and  to  abide  the  hazard,  taking  nothing  into  the  reck- 
oning, either  death  or  anything  else,  before  the  baseness  [of 
deserting  his  post] . 

But,  my  good  friend,  reflect  whether  that  which  is  noble 
and  good  is  not  something  different  from  saving  and  being 
saved ;  for*  as  to  a  man  living  such  or  such  a  time,  at  least 
one  who  is  really  a  man,  consider  if  this  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
dismissed  from  the  thoughts  :*  and  there  must  be  no  love  of 
life :  but  as  to  these  matters  a  man  must  intrust  them  to  the 
deity  and  believe  what  the  women  say,  that  no  man  can 


MEDITATIONS  65 

escape  his  destiny,  the  next  inquiry  being  how  he  may  best 
Hve  the  time  that  he  has  to  live.* 

Look  round  at  the  courses  of  the  stars,  as  if  thou  wert 
going  along  with  them ;  and  constantly  consider  the  changes 
of  the  elements  into  one  another;  for  such  thoughts  purge 
away  the  filth  of  the  earthly  life. 

This  is  a  fine  saying  of  Plato  :*  That  he  who  is  discours- 
ing about  men  should  look  also  at  earthly  things  as  if  he 
viewed  them  from  some  higher  place;  should  look  at  them 
in  their  assemblies,  armies,  agricultural  labours,  marriages, 
treaties,  births,  deaths,  noise  of  the  courts  of  justice,  desert 
places,  various  nations  of  barbarians,  feasts,  lamentations, 
markets,  a  mixture  of  all  things  and  an  orderly  combination 
of  contraries. 

Consider  the  past ;  such  great  changes  of  political  suprem- 
acies. Thou  mayest  foresee  also  the  things  which  will  be. 
For  they  will  certainly  be  of  like  form,  and  it  is  not  possible 
that  they  should  deviate  from  the  order  of  the  things  which 
take  place  now :  accordingly  to  have  contemplated  human  life 
for  forty  years  is  the  same  as  to  have  contemplated  it  for  ten 
thousand  years.    For  what  more  wilt  thou  see  ? 

"That  which  has  grown  from  the  earth,  to  the  earth; 
But  that  which  has  sprung  from  heavenly  seed, 
Back  to  the  heavenly  realms  returns."" 

This  is  either  a  dissolution  of  the  mutual  involution  of  the 
atoms,  or  a  similar  dispersion  of  the  unsentient  elements. , 

"With  food  and  drinks  and  cunning  masric  arts 
Turning  the  channel's  course  to  'scape  from  death."" 
"The  breeze  which  heaven  has  sent 
We  must  endure,  and  toil  without  complaining." 

Another  may  be  more  expert  in  casting  his  opponent ;  but 
he  is  not  more  social,  nor  more  modest,  nor  better  disciplined 
to  meet  all  that  happens,  nor  more  considerate  with  respect  to 
the  faults  of  his  neighbours. 

Where  any  work  can  be  done  conformably  to  the  reason 
which  is  common  to  gods  and  men,  there  we  have  nothing  to 
fear:  for  where  we  are  able  to  get  profit  by  means  of  the 


66  '    MARCUS  AURELIUS 

activity  which  is  successful  and  proceeds  according  to  our 
constitution,  there  no  harm  is  to  be  suspected. 

Everywhere  and  at  all  times  it  is  in  thy  power  piously  to 
acquiesce  in  thy  present  condition,  and  to  behave  justly  to 
those  who  are  about  thee,  and  to  exert  thy  skill  upon  thy 
present  thoughts,  that  nothing  shall  steal  into  them  without 
being  well  examined. 

Do  not  look  around  thee  to  discover  other  men's  ruling 
principles,  but  look  straight  to  this,  to  what  nature  leads  thee, 
both  the  universal  nature  through  the  things  which  happen  to 
thee,  and  thy  own  nature  through  the  acts  which  must  be 
done  by  thee.  But  every  being  ought  to  do  that  which  is  ac- 
cording to  its  constitution;  and  all  other  things  have  been 
constituted  for  the  sake  of  rational  beings,  just  as  among 
irrational  things  the  inferior  for  the  sake  of  the  superior,  but 
the  rational  for  the  sake  of  one  another. 

The  prime  principle  then  in  man's  constitution  is  the 
social.  And  the  second  is  not  to  yield  to  the  persuasions  of 
the  body,  for  it  is  the  peculiar  office  of  the  rational  and  intelli- 
gent motion  to  circumscribe  itself,  and  never  to  be  over- 
powered either  by  the  motion  of  the  senses  or  of  the  appe- 
tites, for  both  are  animal ;  but  the  intelligent  motion  claims 
superiority  and  does  not  permit  itself  to  be  overpowered  by 
the  others.  And  with  good  reason,  for  it  is  formed  by 
nature  to  use  all  of  them.  The  third  thing  in  the  rational 
constitution  is  freedom  from  error  and  from  deception.  Let 
then  the  ruling  principle  holding  fast  to  these  things  go 
straight  on,  and  it  has  what  is  its  own. 

Consider  thyself  to  be  dead,  and  to  have  completed  thy 
life  up  to  the  present  time;  and  live  according  to  nature  the 
remainder  which  is  allowed  thee. 

Love  that  only  which  happens  to  thee  and  is  spun  with  the 
thread  of  thy  destiny.     For  what  is  more  suitable? 

In  everything  which  happens  keep  before  thy  eyes  those 
to  whom  the  same  things  happened,  and  how  they  were 
vexed,  and  treated  them  as  strange  things,  and  found  fault 
with  them :  and  now  where  are  they  ?  Nowhere.  Why 
then  dost  thou  too  choose  to  act  in  the  same  way?  and  why 
dost  thou  not  leave  these  agitations  which  are  foreign  to 
nature,  to  those  who  cause  them  and  those  who  are  moved 


MEDITATIONS  6/ 

by  them?  and  why  art  thou  not  altogether  intent  upon  the 
right  way  of  making  use  of  the  things  which  happen  to  thee  ? 
for  then  thou  wilt  use  them  well,  and  they  will  be  a  material 
for  thee  [to  work  on] .  Only  attend  to  thyself,  and  resolve 
to  be  a  good  man  in  every  act  which  thou  doest:  and  re- 
member     ^^ 

Look  within.  Within  is  the  fountain  of  good,  and  it  will 
ever  bubble  up,  if  thou  wilt  ever  dig. 

The  body  ought  to  be  compact,  and  to  show  no  irregu- 
larity either  in  motion  or  attitude.  For  what  the  mind 
shows  in  the  face  by  maintaining  in  it  the  expression  of  in- 
telligence and  propriety,  that  ought  to  be  required  also  in  the 
whole  body.  But  all  these  things  should  be  observed  with- 
out affectation. 

The  art  of  life  is  more  like  the  wrestler's  art  than  the 
dancer's,  in  respect  of  this,  that  it  should  stand  ready  and 
firm  to  meet  onsets  which  are  sudden  and  unexpected. 

Constantly  observe  who  those  are  whose  approbation  thou 
wishest  to  have,  and  what  ruling  principles  they  possess. 
For  then  thou  wilt  neither  blame  those  who  offend  involun- 
tarily, nor  wilt  thou  want  their  approbation,  if  thou  lookest 
to  the  sources  of  their  opinions  and  appetites. 

Every  soul,  the  philosopher  says,  is  involuntarily  deprived 
of  truth;  consequently  in  the  same  way  it  is  deprived  of  jus- 
tice and  temperance  and  benevolence  and  everything  of  the 
kind.  It  is  most  necessary  to  bear  this  constantly  in  mind, 
for  thus  thou  wilt  be  more  gentle  towards  all. 

In  every  pain  let  this  thought  be  present,  that  there  is  no 
dishonour  in  it,  nor  does  it  make  the  governing  intelligence 
worse,  for  it  does  not  damage  the  intelligence  either  so  far 
as  the  intelligence  is  rational  or  so  far  as  it  is  social.  Indeed 
in  the  case  of  most  pains  let  this  remark  of  Epicurus  aid 
thee,  that  pain  is  neither  intolerable  nor  everlasting,  if  thou 
bearest  in  mind  that  it  has  its  limits,  and  if  thou  addest  noth- 
ing to  it  in  imagination :  and  remember  this  too,  that  we  do 
not  perceive  that  many  things  which  are  disagreeable  to  us 
are  the  same  as  pain,  such  as  excessive  drowsiness,  and  the 
being  scorched  by  heat,  and  the  having  no  appetite.  When 
then  thou  art  discontented  about  any  of  these  things,  say  to 
thyself,  that  thou  art  yielding  to  pain. 


68  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

Take  care  not  to  feel  towards  the  inhuman,  as  they  feel 
towards  men. 

How  do  we  know  that  Telauges  was  not  superior  in  char- 
acter to  Socrates?  for  it  is  not  enough  that  Socrates  died  a 
more  noble  death,  and  disputed  more  skilfully  with  the 
sophists,  and  passed  the  night  in  the  cold  with  more  endur- 
ance, and  that  when  he  was  bid  to  arrest  Leon  of  Salamis, 
he  considered  it  more  noble  to  refuse,  and  that  he  walked 
in  a  swaggering  way  in  the  streets — though  as  to  this  fact 
one  may  have  great  doubts  if  it  was  true.  But  we  ought  to 
inquire,  what  kind  of  a  soul  it  was  that  Socrates  possessed, 
and  if  he  was  able  to  be  content  with  being  just  towards  men 
and  pious  towards  the  gods ;  neither  idly  vexed  on  account  of 
men's  villany,  nor  yet  making  himself  a  slave  to  any  man's 
ignorance,  nor  receiving  as  strange  anything  that  fell  to  his 
share  out  of  the  universal,  nor  enduring  it  as  intolerable,  nor 
allowing  his  understanding  to  sympathize  with  the  affects  of 
the  miserable  flesh. 

Nature  has  not  so  mingled*  [the  intelligence]  with  the 
composition  of  the  body,  as  not  to  have  allowed  thee  the 
power  of  circumscribing  thyself  and  of  bringing  under  sub- 
jection to  thyself  all  that  is  thy  own;  for  it  is  very  possible 
to  be  a  divine  man  and  to  be  recognized  as  such  by  no  one. 
Always  bear  this  in  mind ;  and  another  thing  too,  that  very 
little  indeed  is  necessary  for  living  a  happy  life.  And  be- 
cause thou  hast  despaired  of  becoming  a  dialectician  and 
skilled  in  the  knowledge  of  nature,  do  not  for  this  reason  re- 
nounce the  hope  of  being  both  free  and  modest  and  social  and 
obedient  to  God. 

It  is  in  thy  power  to  live  free  from  all  compulsion  in  the 
greatest  tranquillity  of  mind,  even  if  all  the  world  cry  out 
against  thee  as  much  as  they  choose,  and  even  if  wild  beasts 
tear  in  pieces  the  members  of  this  kneaded  matter  which  has 
grown  around  thee.  For  what  hinders  the  mind  in  the 
midst  of  all  this  from  maintaining  itself  in  tranquillity,  and 
in  a  just  judgment  of  all  surrounding  things,  and  in  a  ready 
use  of  the  objects  which  are  presented  to  it,  so  that  the  judg- 
ment may  say  to  the  thing  which  falls  under  its  observation : 
This  thou  art  in  substance  [reality],  though  in  men's  opinion 
thou  mayest  appear  to  be  of  a  different  kind ;  and  the  use 


MEDITATIONS  69 

shall  say  to  that  which  falls  under  the  hand :  Thou  art  the 
thing  that  I  was  seeking ;  for  to  rfle  that  which  presents  itself 
is  always  a  material  for  virtue  both  rational  and  political,  and 
in  a  word,  for  the  exercise  of  art,  which  belongs  to  man  or 
God.  For  everything  which  happens  has  a  relationship 
either  to  God  or  to  man,  and  is  neither  new  nor  difficult  to 
handle,  but  usual  and  apt  matter  to  work  on. 

The  perfection  of  moral  character  consists  in  passing  every 
day  as  the  last,  and  in  being  neither  violently  excited  nor 
torpid  nor  playing  the  hypocrite. 

The  gods,  who  are  immortal,  are  not  vexed  because  during 
so  long  a  time  they  must  tolerate  continually  men  such  as 
they  are  and  so  many  of  them  bad ;  and  besides  this,  they  also 
take  care  of  them  in  all  ways.  But  thou,  who  art  destined  to 
end  so  soon,  art  thou  wearied  of  enduring  the  bad,  and  this 
too  when  thou  art  one  of  them? 

It  is  a  ridiculous  thing  for  a  man  not  to  fly  from  his  own 
badness,  which  is  indeed  possible,  but  to  fly  from  other  men's 
badness,  which  is  impossible. 

Whatever  the  rational  and  political  [social]  faculty  finds 
to  be  neither  intelligent  nor  social,  it  properly  judges  to  be 
inferior  to  itself. 

When  thou  hast  done  a  good  act  and  another  has  received 
it,  why  dost  thou  still  look  for  a  third  thing  besides  these,  as 
fools  do,  either  to  have  the  reputation  of  having  done  a  good 
act  or  to  obtain  a  return? 

No  man  is  tired  of  receivingwhat  is  useful.  But  it  is  useful 
to  act  according  to  nature.  Do  not  then  be  tired  of  receiv- 
ing what  is  useful  by  doing  it  to  others. 

The  nature  of  the  All  moved  to  make  the  universe.  But 
now  either  everything  that  takes  place  comes  by  way  of  con- 
sequence or  [continuity]  ;  or  even  the  chief  things  towards 
which  the  ruling  power  of  the  universe  directs  its  own  move- 
ment are  governed  by  no  rational  principle.  If  this  is  re- 
membered it  will  make  thee  more  tranquil  in  many  things.** 

NOTES 

*  This  is  corrupt. 

*  The  end  of  this  section  is  unintelligfible. 

*  Plato.  Pol.  VI,  486. 

*  From  the  Bellerophon  of  Euripides. 


yO  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

"From  the  Hypsipyle  of  Euripides.  Cicero  (Tuscul.  in,  25.)  has 
translated  six  lines  from  Euripides,  and  among  them  are  these  two 
lines, — 

"Reddenda  terrae  est  terra:  turn  vita  omnibus 
Metenda  ut  fruges:    Sic  jubet  necessitas." 

*  See  Aristophanes,  Acharnenses,  v.  661. 
'  From  the  Apologia,  c.  16. 

*  Plato,  Gorgias,  c.  68  (512).  In  this  passage  the  text  of  Antoninus 
has  kareov  which  is  perhaps  right ;  but  there  is  a  difficulty  in  the^  words 
jirf  yap  tovto  niv,  to  tjjv  oTtodovStf  xpoyov  rovys  (hi  dXijQ&i 
avSpa  kareov  idti,  Kai  ov,  etc. 

*  It  is  said  that  tftis  is  not  in  the  extant  writings  of  Plato. 
"  From  the  Chrysippus  of  Euripides. 

"  The  first  two  lines  are  from  the  Supplices  of  Euripides,  v,  iiio. 

"  This  section  is  obscure,  and  the  conclusion  is  so  corrupt  that  it  is 
impossible  to  give  any  probable  meaning  to  it.  It  is  better  to  leave  it  as 
it  is  than  to  patch  it  up,  as  some  critics  and  translators  have  done. 

"  It  is  not  easy  to  understand  this  section.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
there  is  some  error  in  7  aXoyidra.  etc.  Some  of  the  translators  have 
made  nothing  of  the  passage,  and  they  have  somewhat  perverted  the 
words.  The  first  proposition  is,  that  the  universe  was  made  by  some 
sufficient  power.  A  beginning  of  the  universe  is  assumed,  and  a  power 
which  framed  an  order.  The  next  question  is.  How  are  things  produced 
now;  or,  in  other  words,  by  what  power  do  forms  appear  in  continuous 
succession  ?  The  answer,  according  to  Antoninus,  may  be  this :  It  is  by 
virtue  of  the  original  constitution  of  things  that  all  change  and  succes- 
sion have  been  effected  and  are  effected.  And  this  is  intelligible  in  a 
sense,  if  we  admit  that  the  universe  is  always  one  and  the  same,  a  con- 
tinuity of  identity;  as  much  one  and  the  same  as  man  is  one  and  the 
same,  which  he  believes  himself  to  be,  though  he  also  believes  and  can 
not  help  believing  that  both  in  his  body  and  in  his  thoughts  there  is 
change  and  succession.  There  is  no  real  discontinuity  then  in  the  uni- 
verse; and  if  we  say  that  there  was  an  order  framed  in  the  beginning 
and  that  the  things  which  are  now  produced  are  a  consequence  of  a 
previous  arrangement,  we  speak  of  things  as  we  are  compelled  to  view 
them,  as  forming  a  series  or  succession;  just  as  we  speak  of  the  changes 
in  our  own  bodies  and  the  sequence  of  our  own  thoughts.  But  as  there 
are  no  intervals,  not  even  intervals  infinitely  small,  between  any  two 
supposed  states  of  any  one  thing,  so  there  are  no  intervals,  not  even  in- 
finitely small,  between  what  we  call  one  thing  and  any  other  thing  which 
we  speak  of  as  immediately  preceding  or  following  it.  What  we  call 
time  is  an  idea  derived  from  our  notion  of  a  succession  of  things  or 
events,  an  idea  which  is  a  part  of  our  constitution,  but  not  an  idea  which 
we  can  suppose  to  belong  to  an  infinite  intelligence  and  power.  The 
conclusion  then  is  certain  that  the  present  and  the  past,  the  production 
of  present  things  and  the  supposed  original  order,  out  of  which  we  say 
that  present  things  now  come,  are  one :  and  the  present  productive 
power  and  the  so-called  past  arrangement  are  only  different  names  for 
one  thing.  I  suppose  then  that  Antoninus  wrote  here  as  people  some- 
times talk  now,  and  that  his  real  meaning  is  not  exactly  expressed  by 
his  words.  There  are  certainly  other  passages  from  which,  I  think,  that 
we  may  collect  that  he  had  notions  of  production  something  like  what 
I  have  expressed. 

We  now  come  to  the  alternative :  "or  even  the  chief  things 


MEDITATIONS  7 1 

principle."  I  do  not  exactly  know  what  he  means  by  ra  Kvptdbrara 
"the  chief,"  or,  "the  most  excellent,"  or  whatever  it  is.  But  as  he 
speaks  elsewhere  of  inferior  and  superior  things,  and  of  the  inferior 
being  for  the  .use  of  the  superior,  and  of  rational  beings  being  the  high- 
est, he  may  here  mean  rational  beings.  He  also  in  this  alternative  as- 
sumes a  governing  power  of  the  universe,  and  that  it  acts  by  directing 
its  power  towards  these  chief  objects,  or  making  its  special,  proper, 
motion  towards  them.  And  here  he  uses  the  noun  {opfxrf)  "movement,'' 
which  contains  the  same  motion  as  the  verb  {wpfXTf^e)  "moved,"  which 
he  used  at  the  beginning  of  the  paragraph  when  he  was  speaking  of 
the  making  of  the  universe.  If  we  do  not  accept  the  first  hypothesis, 
he  says,  we  must  take  the  conclusion  of  the  second,  that  the  "chief  thing 
towards  which  the  ruling  power  of  the  universe  directs  its  own  move- 
ment are  governed  by  no  rational  principle."  The  meaning  then  is.  if 
there  is  a  meaning  in  it,  that  though  there  is  a  governing  power,  which 
strives  to  give  effect  to  its  efforts,  we  must  conclude  that  there  is  no 
rational  direction  of  anything,  if  the  power  which  first  made  the  uni- 
verse does  not  in  some  way  govern  it  still.  Besides,  if  we  assume  that 
anything  is  now  produced  or  now  exists  without  the  action  of  the  su- 
preme intelligence,  and  yet  that  this  intelligence  makes  an  effort  to  act, 
we  obtain  a  conclusion  which  can  not  be  reconciled  with  the  nature  of  a 
supreme  power,  whose  existence  Antoninus  always  assumes.  The  tran- 
quillity that  a  man  may  gain  from  these  reflections  must  result  from  his 
rejecting  the  second  hypothesis,  and  accepting  the  first;  whatever  may 
be  the  exact  sense  in  which  the  emperor  understood  the  first.  Or,  as  he 
says  elsewhere,  if  there  is  no  providence  which  governs  the  world,  man 
has  at  least  the  power  of  governing  himself  according  to  the  constitu- 
tion of  his  nature ;  and  so  he  may  be  tranquil,  if  he  does  the  best  that  he 
can. 

If  there  is  no  error  in  the  passage,  it  is  worth  the  labour  to  discover 
the  writer's  exact  meaning;  for  I  think  that  he  had  a  meaning,  though 
people  may  not  agree  what  it  was.  If  I  have  rightly  explained  the  em- 
peror's meaning  in  this  and  other  passages,  he  has  touched  the  solution 
of  a  great  question. 


BOOK  VIII 

THIS  reflection  also  tends  to  the  removal  of  the  desire 
of  empty  fame,  that  it  is  no  longer  in  thy  power  to 
have  lived  the  whole  of  thy  life,  or  at  least  thy  life 
from  thy  youth  upwards,  like  the  philosopher;  but 
both  to  many  others  and  to  thyself  it  is  plain  that  thou  art  far 
from  philosophy.  Thou  hast  fallen  into  disorder  then,  so 
that  it  is  no  longer  easy  for  thee  to  get  the  reputation  of  a 
philosopher;  and  thy  plan  of  life  also  opposes  it.  If  then 
thou  hast  truly  seen  where  the  matter  lies,  throw  away  the 
thought.  How  thou  shalt  seem  to  others,  and  be  content  if 
thou  shalt  live  the  rest  of  thy  life  in  such  wise  as  thy  nature 
wills.  Observe  then  what  it  wills,  and  let  nothing  else  dis- 
tract thee ;  for  thou  hast  had  experience  of  many  wanderings 
without  having  found  happiness  anywhere ;  not  in  syllogisms 
nor  in  wealth,  nor  in  reputation,  nor  in  enjoyment,  nor 
anywhere.  Where  is  it  then  ?  In  doing  what  man's  nature 
requires.  How  then  shall  a  man  do  this  ?  If  he  has  prin- 
ciples from  which  come  his  affects  and  his  acts.  What  prin- 
ciples ?  Those  which  relate  to  good  and  bad :  the  belief  that 
there  is  nothing  good  for  man,  which  does  not  make  him 
just,  temperate,  manly,  free;  and  that  there  is  nothing  bad, 
which  does  not  do  the  contrary  to  what  has  been  mentioned. 
On  the  occasion  of  every  act  ask  thyself.  How  is  this  with 
respect  to  me?  Shall  I  repent  of  it?  A  little  time  and  I 
am  dead,  and  all  is  gone.  What  more  do  I  seek,  if  what  I 
am  now  doing  is  the  work  of  an  intelligent  living  being,  and 
a  social  being,  and  one  who  is  under  the  same  law  with  God  ? 
Alexander  and  Caius^  and  Pompeius,  what  are  they  in 
comparison  with  Diogenes  and  Heraclitus  and  Socrates? 
For  they  were  acquainted  with  things,  and  their  causes 
[forms],  and  their  matter,  and  the  ruling  principles  of  these 
men  were  conformable  to  their  pursuits.   But  as  to  the 

72 


MEDITATIONS  73 

others,  how  many  things  had  they  to  care  for,  and  to  how 
many  things  were  they  slaves. 

Consider  that  men  will  do  the  same  things  nevertheless, 
even  though  thou  shouldst  burst. 

This  is  the  chief  thing :  Be  not  perturbed,  for  all  things  are 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  universal ;  and  in  a  little  time 
thou  wilt  be  nobody  and  nowhere,  like  Hadrianus  and 
Augustus.  In  the  next  place  having  fixed  thy  eyes  steadily 
on  thy  business  look  at  it,  and  at  the  same  time  remembering 
that  it  is  thy  duty  to  be  a  good  man,  and  what  man's  nature 
demands,  do  that  without  turning  aside;  and  speak  as  it 
seems  to  thee  most  just,  only  let  it  be  with  a  good  disposition 
and  with  modesty  and  without  hypocrisy. 

The  nature  of  the  universal  has  this  work  to  do,  to  remove 
to  that  place  the  things  which  are  in  this,  to  change  them, 
to  take  them  away  hence,  and  to  carry  them  there.  All 
things  are  change,  yet  we  need  not  fear  anything  new.  All 
things  are  familiar  to  us;  but  the  distribution  of  them  still 
remains  the  same. 

Every  nature  is  contented  with  itself  when  it  goes  on  its 
way  well ;  and  a  rational  nature  goes  on  its  way  well,  when 
in  its  thoughts  it  assents  to  nothing  false  or  uncertain,  and 
when  it  directs  its  movements  to  social  acts  only,  and 
when  it  confines  its  desires  and  aversions  to  the  things  which 
are  in  its  power,  and  when  it  is  satisfied  with  everything  that 
is  assigned  to  it  by  the  common  nature.  For  of  this  common 
nature  every  particular  nature  is  a  part,  as  the  nature  of  the 
leaf  is  a  part  of  the  nature  of  the  plant;  except  that  in  the 
plant  the  nature  of  the  leaf  is  part  of  a  nature  which  has  not 
perception  or  reason,  and  is  subject  to  be  impeded;  but  the 
nature  of  man  is  part  of  a  nature  which  is  not  subject  to 
impediments,  and  is  intelligent  and  just,  since  it  gives  to 
everything  in  equal  portions  and  according  to  its  worth, 
times,  substance,  cause  [form],  activity  and  incident.  But 
examine,  not  to  discover  that  any  one  thing  compared  with 
any  other  single  thing  is  equal  in  all  respects,  but  by  taking 
all  the  parts  together  of  one  thing  and  comparing  them  with 
all  the  parts  together  of  another. 

Thou  hast  not  leisure  [or  ability]  to  read.  But  thou  hast 
leisure  [or  ability]  to  check  arrogance :  thou  hast  leisure  to 


74  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

be  superior  to  pleasure  and  pain :  thou  hast  leisure  to  be  su- 
perior to  love  of  fame,  and  not  to  be  vexed  at  stupid  and  un- 
grateful people,  nay  even  to  care  for  them. 

Let  no  man  any  longer  hear  thee  finding  fault  with  the 
court  life  or  with  thy  own. 

Repentance  is  a  kind  of  self-reproof  for  having  neglected 
something  useful ;  but  that  which  is  good  must  be  something 
useful,  and  the  perfect  good  man  should  look  after  it.  But 
no  such  man  would  ever  repent  of  having  refused  any  sen- 
sual pleasure.     Pleasure  then  is  neither  good  nor  useful. 

This  thing,  what  is  it  in  itself,  in  its  own  constitution? 
What  is  its  substance  and  material?  And  what  its  causal 
nature  [or  form]?  And  what  is  it  doing  in  the  world? 
And  how  long  does  it  subsist  ? 

When  thou  risest  from  sleep  with  reluctance,  remember 
that  it  is  according  to  thy  constitution  and  according  to 
human  nature  to  perform  social  acts,  but  sleeping  is  common 
also  to  irrational  animals.  But  that  which  is  according  to 
each  individual's  nature  is  also  more  peculiarly  its  own,  and 
more  suitable  to  its  nature,  and  indeed  also  more  agreeable. 

Constantly  and,  if  it  be  possible,  on  the  occasion  of  every 
impression  on  the  soul,  apply  to  it  the  principles  of  Physics, 
of  Ethics,  and  of  Dialectics. 

Whatever  man  thou  meetest  with,  immediately  say  to  thy- 
self: What  opinions  has  this  man  about  good  and  bad? 
For  if  with  respect  to  pleasure  and  pain  and  the  causes  of 
each,  and  with  respect  to  fame  and  ignominy,  death  and 
life  he  has  such  and  such  opinions,  it  will  seem  nothing  won- 
derful or  strange  to  me,  if  he  does  such  and  such  things ;  and 
I  shall  bear  in  mind  that  he  is  compelled  to  do  so. 

Remember  that  as  it  is  a  shame  to  be  surprised  if  the  fig- 
tree  produces  figs,  so  it  is  to  be  surprised  if  the  world  pro- 
duces such  and  such  things  of  which  it  is  productive;  and 
for  the  physician  and  the  helmsman  it  is  a  shame  to  be  sur- 
prised, if  a  man  has  a  fever,  or  if  the  wind  is  unfavourable. 

Remember  that  to  change  thy  opinion  and  to  follow  him 
who  corrects  thy  error  is  as  consistent  with  freedom  as  it  is 
to  persist  in  thy  error.  For  it  is  thy  own,  the  activity  which 
is  exerted  according  to  thy  own  movement  and  judgment, 
and  indeed  according  to  thy  own  understanding  too. 


MEDITATIONS  75 

If  a  thing  is  in  thy  own  power,  why  dost  thou  do  it  ?  but 
if  it  is  in  the  power  of  another,  whom  dost  thou  blame?  the 
atoms  [chance]  or  the  gods  ?  Both  are  fooHsh.  Thou  must 
blame  nobody.  For  if  thou  canst,  correct  that  which  is  the 
cause ;  but  if  thou  canst  not  do  this,  correct  at  least  the  thing 
itself;  but  if  thou  canst  not  do  even  this,  of  what  use  is  it 
to  thee  to  find  fault?  for  nothing  should  be  done  without  a 
purpose. 

That  which  has  died  falls  not  out  of  the  universe.  If 
it  stays  here,  it  also  changes  here,  and  is  dissolved  into  its 
proper  parts,  which  are  elements  of  the  universe  and  of  thy- 
self.    And  these  too  change,  and  they  murmur  not. 

Everything  exists  for  some  end,  a  horse,  a  vine.  Why 
dost  thou  wonder?  Even  the  sun  will  say,  I  am  for  some 
purpose,  and  the  rest  of  the  gods  will  say  the  same.  For 
what  purpose  then  art  thou  ?  to  enjoy  pleasure  ?  See  if  com- 
mon sense  allows  this. 

Nature  has  had  regard  in  everything  no  less  to  the  end 
than  to  the  beginning  and  the  continuance,  just  like  the  man 
who  throws  up  a  ball.  What  good  is  it  then  for  the  ball  to 
be  thrown  up,  or  harm  for  it  to  come  down,  or  even  to  have 
fallen?  and  what  good  is  it  to  the  bubble  while  it  holds 
together,  or  what  harm  when  it  is  burst  ?  The  same  may  be 
said  of  a  light  also. 

Turn  it  [the  body]  inside  out,  and  see  what  kind  of 
thing  it  is ;  and  when  it  has  grown  old,  what  kind  of  thing  it 
becomes ;  and  when  it  is  diseased. 

Short  lived  are  both  the  praiser  and  the  praised,  and  the 
rememberer  and  the  remembered :  and  all  this  in  a  nook  of 
this  part  of  the  world;  and  not  even  here  do  all  agree, 
no,  not  any  one  with  himself;  and  the  whole  earth  too  is  a 
point. 

Attend  to  the  matter  which  is  before  thee,  whether  it  is 
an  opinion  or  an  act  or  a  word. 

Thou  sufferest  this  justly :  for  thou  choosest  rather  to  be- 
come good  to-morrow  than  to  be  good  to-day. 

Am  I  doing  anything  ?  I  do  it  with  reference  to  the  good 
of  mankind.  Does  anything  happen  to  me?  I  receive  it 
and  refer  it  to  the  gods,  and  the  source  of  all  things,  from 
which  all  that  happens  is  derived. 


76  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

Such  as  bathing  appears  to  thee — oil,  sweat,  dirt,  filthy 
water,  all  things  disgusting — rso  is  every  part  of  life  and 
everything. 

Lucilla  saw  Verus  die,  and  then  Lucilla  died.  Secunda 
saw  Maximus  die,  and  then  Secunda  died.  Epitynchanus 
saw  Diotimus  die,  and  then  Epitynchanus  died.  Antoninus 
saw  Faustina  die,  and  then  Antoninus  died.  Such  is  every- 
thing. Celer  saw  Hadrianus  die,  and  then  Celer  died.  And 
those  sharp-witted  men,  either  seers  or  men  inflated  with 
pride,  where  are  they?  for  instance  the  sharpwitted  men, 
Charax  and  Demetrius  the  Platonist  and  Eudaemon,  and  any 
one  else  like  them.  All  ephemeral,  dead  long  ago.  Some 
indeed  have  not  been  remembered  even  for  a  short  time,  and 
others  have  become  the  heroes  of  fables,  and  again  others 
have  disappeared  even  from  fables.  Remember  this  then, 
that  this  little  compound,  thyself,  must  either  be  dissolved,  or 
thy  poor  breath  must  be  extinguished,  or  be  removed  and 
placed  elsewhere. 

It  is  a  satisfaction  to  a  man  to  do  the  proper  works  of  a 
man.  Now  it  is  a  proper  work  of  a  man  to  be  benevolent  to 
his  own  kind,  to  despise  the  movements  of  the  senses,  to  form 
a  just  judgment  of  plausible  appearances,  and  to  take  a  sur- 
vey of  the  nature  of  the  universe  and  of  the  things  which 
happen  in  it. 

There  are  three  relations  [between  thee  and  other  things]  : 
the  one  to  the  body  which  surrounds  thee ;  the  second  to  the 
divine  cause  from  which  all  things  come  to  all ;  and  the  third 
to  those  who  live  with  thee. 

Pain  is  either  an  evil  to  the  body — then  let  the  body  say 
what  it  thinks  of  it — or  to  the  soul;  but  it  is  in  the  power 
of  the  soul  to  maintain  its  own  serenity  and  tranquillity,  and 
not  to  think  that  pain  is  an  evil.  For  every  judgment  and 
movement  and  desire  and  aversion  is  within,  and  no  evil 
ascends  so  high. 

Wipe  out  thy  imaginations  by  often  saying  to  thyself: 
now  it  is  in  my  power  to  let  no  badness  be  in  this  soul,  nor 
desire  nor  any  perturbation  at  all ;  but  looking  at  all  things 
I  see  what  is  their  nature,  and  I  use  each  according  to  its 
value. — Remember  this  power  which  thou  hast  from  nature. 

Speak  both  in  the  senate  and  to  every  man,  whoever  he 


MEDITATIONS  TJ 

may  be  appropriately,  not  with  any  affectation:  use  plain 
discourse. 

Augustus'  court,  wife,  daughter,  descendants,  ancestors, 
sister,  Agrippa,  kinsmen,  intimates,  friends,  Areius,^  Maece- 
nas, physicians  and  sacrificing  priests — the  whole  court  is 
dead.  Then  turn  to  the  rest,  not  considering  the  death  of  a 
single  man,  but  of  a  whole  race,  as  of  the  Pompeii ;  and  that 
which  is  inscribed  on  the  tombs — The  last  of  his  race.  Then 
consider  what  trouble  those  before  them  have  had  that 
they  might  leave  a  successor ;  and  then,  that  of  necessity  some 
one  must  be  the  last.  Again  here  consider  the  death  of  a 
whole  race. 

It  is  thy  duty  to  order  thy  life  well  in  every  single  act; 
and  if  every  act  does  its  duty,  as  far  as  is  possible,  be  con- 
tent ;  and  no  one  is  able  to  hinder  thee  so  that  each  act  shall 
not  do  its  duty. 

But  something  external  will  stand  in  the  way — Nothing 
will  stand  in  the  way  of  thy  acting  justly  and  soberly  and 
considerately — But  perhaps  some  other  active  power  will  be 
hindered — Well,  but  by  acquiescing  in  the  hindrance  and  by 
being  content  to  transfer  thy  efforts  to  that  which  is  allowed, 
another  opportunity  of  action  is  immediately  put  before  thee 
in  place  of  that  which  was  hindered,  and  one  which  will  adapt 
itself  to  this  ordering  of  which  we  are  speaking. 

Receive  [wealth  or  prosperity]  without  arrogance;  and  be 
ready  to  let  it  go. 

If  thou  didst  ever  see  a  hand  cut  off,  or  a  foot,  or  a  head, 
lying  anywhere  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  body,  such  does 
a  man  make  himself,  as  far  as  he  can,  who  is  not  content 
with  what  happens,  and  separates  himself  from  others,  or 
does  anything  unsocial.  Suppose  that  thou  hast  detached 
thyself  from  the  natural  unity — for  thou  wast  made  by  na- 
ture a  part,  but  now  thou  hast  cut  thyself  off — yet  here  there 
is  this  beautiful  provision,  that  it  is  in  thy  power  again 
to  unite  thyself.  God  has  allowed  this  to  no  other  part,  after 
it  has  been  separated  and  cut  asunder,  to  come  together 
again.  But  consider  the  kindness  by  which  he  has  distin- 
guished man,  for  he  has  put  it  in  his  power  not  to  be  sep- 
arated at  all  from  the  universal ;  and  when  he  has  been  sep- 


^S  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

arated,  he  has  allowed  him  to  return  and  to  be  united  and  to 
resume  his  place  as  a  part. 

As  the  nature  of  the  universal  has  given  to  every  rational 
being  all  the  other  powers  that  it  has,*  so  we  have  received 
from  it  this  power  also.  For  as  the  universal  nature  con- 
verts and  fixes  in  its  predestined  place  everything  which 
stands  in  the  way  and  opposes  it,  and  makes  such  things  a 
part  of  itself,  so  also  the  rational  animal  is  able  to  make  every 
hindrance  its  own  material,  and  to  use  it  for  such  purposes  as 
it  may  have  designed. 

Do  not  disturb  thyself  by  thinking  of  the  whole  of  thy 
life.  Let  not  thy  thoughts  at  once  embrace  all  the  various 
troubles  which  thou  mayest  expect  to  befall  thee:  but  on 
every  occasion  ask  thyself.  What  is  there  in  this  which  is  in- 
tolerable and  past  bearing?  for  thou  wilt  be  ashamed  to 
confess.  In  the  next  place  remember  that  neither  the  future 
nor  the  past  pains  thee,  but  only  the  present.  But  this  is  re- 
duced to  a  very  little,  if  thou  only  circumscribest  it,  and 
chidest  thy  mind,  if  it  is  unable  to  hold  out  against  even  this. 

Does  Panthea  orPergamusnowsit  by  the  tomb  of  Verus?^ 
Does  Chaurias  or  Diotimus  sit  by  the  tomb  of  Hadrianus? 
That  would  be  ridiculous.  Well,  suppose  they  did  sit  there, 
would  the  dead  be  conscious  of  it  ?  and  if  the  dead  were  con- 
scious, would  they  be  pleased?  and  if  they  were  pleased, 
would  that  make  them  immortal  ?  Was  it  not  in  the  order 
of  destiny  that  these  persons  too  should  first  become  old  wo- 
men and  old  men  and  then  die?  What  then  would  those  do 
after  these  were  dead?  All  this  is  foul  smell  and  blood  in  a 
bag. 

If  thou  canst  see  sharply,  look  and  judge  wisely,*  says  the 
philosopher. 

In  the  constitution  of  the  rational  animal  I  see  no  virtue 
which  is  opposed  to  justice;  but  I  see  a  virtue  which  is  op- 
posed to  love  of  pleasure,  and  that  is  temperance. 

If  thou  takest  away  thy  opinion  about  that  which  appears 
to  give  thee  pain,  thou  thyself  standest  in  perfect  security — 
Who  is  this  self  ? — The  reason — But  I  am  not  reason — Be  it 
so.  Let  then  the  reason  itself  not  trouble  itself.  But  if  any 
other  part  of  thee  suffers  let  it  have  its  own  opinion  about 
itself. 


MEDITATIONS 


79 


Hindrance  to  the  perceptions  of  sense  is  an  evil  to  the 
animal  nature.  Hindrance  to  the  movements  [desires]  is 
equally  an  evil  to  the  animal  nature.  And  something  else 
also  is  equally  an  impediment  and  an  evil  to  the  constitution 
of  plants.  So  then  that  which  is  a  hindrance  to  the  intelli- 
gence is  an  evil  to  the  intelligent  nature.  Apply  all  these 
things  then  to  thyself.  Does  pain  or  sensuous  pleasure  af- 
fect thee?  The  senses  will  look  to  that. — Has  any  obstacle 
opposed  thee  in  thy  efforts  towards  an  object?  if  indeed  thou 
wast  making  this  effort  absolutely  [unconditionally,  or  with- 
out any  reservation],  certainly  this  obstacle  is  an  evil  to 
thee  considered  as  a  rational  animal.  But  if  thou  takest  into 
consideration  the  usual  course  of  things,  thou  hast  not  yet 
been  injured  nor  even  impeded.  The  things  however  which 
are  proper  to  the  understanding  no  other  man  is  used  to  im- 
pede, for  neither  fire,  nor  iron,  nor  tyrant,  nor  abuse,  touches 
it  in  any  way.  When  it  has  been  made  a  sphere,  it  continues 
a  sphere. 

It  is  not  fit  that  I  should  give  myself  pain,  for  I  have 
never  intentionally  g^ven  pain  even  to  another. 

Different  things  delight  different  people.  But  it  is  my 
delight  to  keep  the  ruling  faculty  sound  without  turning 
away  either  from  any  man  or  from  any  of  the  things  which 
happen  to  men,  but  looking  at  and  receiving  all  with  welcome 
eyes  and  using  everything  according  to  its  value. 

See  that  thou  secure  this  present  time  to  thyself :  for  those 
who  rather  pursue  posthumous  fame  do  not  consider  that  the 
men  of  after  time  will  be  exactly  such  as  these  whom  they 
can  not  bear  now ;  and  both  are  mortal.  And  what  is  it  in 
any  way  to  thee  if  these  men  of  after  time  utter  this  or  that 
sound,  or  have  this  or  that  opinion  about  thee? 

Take  me  and  cast  me  where  thou  wilt;  for  there  I  shall 
keep  my  divine  part  tranquil,  that  is,  content,  if  it  can  feel 
and  act  conformably  to  its  proper  constitution.  Is  this 
change  of  place  sufficient  reason  why  my  soul  should  be  un- 
happy and  worse  than  it  was,  depressed,  expanded,  shrink- 
ing, affrighted?  and  what  wilt  thou  find  which  is  sufficient 
reason  for  this  ? 

Nothing  can  happen  to  any  man  which  is  not  a  human 
accident,  nor  to  an  ox  which  is  not  according  to  the  nature 


8o  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

of  an  ox,  nor  to  a  vine  which  is  not  according  to  the  nature 
of  a  vine,  nor  to  a  stone  which  is  not  proper  to  a  stone.  If 
then  there  happens  to  each  thing  both  what  is  usual  and 
natural,  why  shouldst  thou  complain?  For  the  common 
nature  brings  nothing  which  may  not  be  borne  by  thee. 

If  thou  art  pained  by  any  external  thing,  it  is  not  this  thing 
that  disturbs  thee,  but  thy  own  judgment  about  it.  And  it 
is  in  thy  power  to  wipe  out  this  judgment  now.  But  if  any- 
thing in  thy  own  disposition  gives  thee  pain,  who  hinders 
thee  from  correcting  thy  opinion?  And  even  if  thou  art 
pained  because  thou  art  not  doing  some  particular  thing 
which  seems  to  thee  to  be  right,  why  dost  thou  not  rather 
act  than  complain  ? — But  some  insuperable  obstacle  is  in  the 
way  ? — Do  not  be  grieved  then,  for  the  cause  of  its  not  being 
done  depends  not  on  thee — But  it  is  not  worth  while  to  live, 
if  this  can  not  be  done — Take  thy  departure  then  from  life 
contentedly,  just  as  he  dies  who  is  in  full  activity,  and  well 
pleased  too  with  the  things  which  are  obstacles. 

Remember  that  the  ruling  faculty  is  invincible,  when  self- 
collected  it  is  satisfied  with  itself,  if  it  does  nothing  which 
it  does  not  choose  to  do,  even  if  it  resist  from  mere  obstinacy. 
What  then  will  it  be  when  it  forms  a  judgment  about  any- 
thing aided  by  reason  and  deliberately?  Therefore  the 
mind  which  is  free  from  passions  is  a  citadel,  for  man  has 
nothing  more  secure  to  which  he  can  fly  for  refuge  and  for 
the  future  be  inexpugnable.  He  then  who  has  not  seen  this 
is  an  ignorant  man ;  but  he  who  has  seen  it  and  does  not  fly 
to  this  refuge  is  unhappy. 

Say  nothing  more  to  thyself  than  what  the  first  appear- 
ances report.  Suppose  that  it  has  been  reported  to  thee  that 
a  certain  person  speaks  ill  of  thee.  This  has  been  reported ; 
but  that  thou  hast  been  injured,  that  has  not  been  reported. 
I  see  that  my  child  is  sick.  I  do  see;  but  that  he  is  in  dan- 
ger, I  do  not  see.  Thus  then  always  abide  by  the  first  ap- 
pearances, and  add  nothing  thyself  from  within,  and  then 
nothing  happens  to  thee.  Or  rather  add  something,  like  a 
man  who  knows  everything  that  happens  in  the  world. 

A  cucumber  is  bitter. — Throw  it  away. —  There  are  briars 
in  the  road. — Turn  aside  from  them. — This  is  enough.  Do 
not  add.  And  why  were  such  things  made  in  the  world  ?    For 


MEDITATIONS  8 1 

thou  wilt  be  ridiculed  by  a  man  who  is  acquainted  with  na- 
ture, as  thou  wouldst  be  ridiculed  by  a  carpenter  and  shoe- 
maker if  thou  didst  find  fault  because  thou  seest  in  their 
workshop  shavings  and  cuttings  from  the  things  which  they 
make.  And  yet  they  have  places  into  which  they  can  throw 
these  shavings  and  cuttings,  and  the  universal  nature  has  no 
external  space;  but  the  wondrous  part  of  her  art  is  that 
though  she  has  circumscribed  herself,  everything  within  her 
which  appears  to  decay  and  to  grow  old  and  to  be  useless  she 
changes  into  herself,  and  again  makes  other  new  things  from 
these  very  same,  so  that  she  requires  neither  substance  from 
without  nor  wants  a  place  into  which  she  may  cast  that 
which  decays.  She  is  content  then  with  her  own  space,  and 
her  own  matter  and  her  own  art. 

Neither  in  thy  actions  be  sluggish,  nor  in  thy  conversa- 
tion without  method,  nor  wandering  in  thy  thoughts,  nor 
let  there  be  in  thy  soul  inward  contention  nor  external  effu- 
sion, nor  in  life  be  so  busy  as  to  have  no  leisure. 

Suppose  that  men  kill  thee,  cut  thee  in  pieces,  curse  thee. 
What  then  can  those  things  do  to  prevent  thy  mind  from  re- 
maining pure,  wise,  sober,  just?  For  instance,  if  a  man 
should  stand  by  a  limpid,  pure  spring,  and  curse  it,  the  spring 
never  ceases  sending  up  potable  water ;  and  if  he  should  cast 
clay  into  it  or  filth,  it  will  speedily  disperse  them  and  wash 
them  out,  and  will  not  be  at  all  polluted.  How  then  shalt  thou 
possess  a  perpetual  fountain  [and  not  a  mere  well]  ?  By 
forming*  thyself  hourly,  to  freedom,  conjoined  with  con- 
tentment, simplicity,  and  modesty. 

He  who  does  not  know  what  the  world  is,  does  not  know 
where  he  is.  And  he  who  does  not  know  for  what  purpose 
the  world  exists,  does  not  know  who  he  is,  nor  what  the 
world  is.  And  he  who  has  failed  in  any  one  of  these  things 
could  not  even  say  for  what  purpose  he  exists  himself. 
What  then  dost  thou  think  of  him  who  seeks  the  praise  of 
those  who  applaud,  of  men  who  know  not  either  where  they 
are  or  who  they  are? 

Dost  thou  wish  to  be  praised  by  a  man  who  curses  him- 
self thrice  every  hour?  wouldst  thou  wish  to  please  a  man 
who  does  not  please  himself?  Does  a  man  please  himself 
who    repents  of  nearly  everything  that  he  does? 


82  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

No  longer  let  thy  breathing  only  act  in  concert  with  the 
air  which  surrounds  thee,  but  let  thy  intelligence  also  now 
be  in  harmony  with  the  intelligence  which  embraces  all 
things.  For  the  intelligent  power  is  no  less  diffused  in  all 
parts  and  pervades  all  things  for  him  who  is  willing  to  draw 
it  to  him  than  the  aerial  power  for  him  who  is  able  to  re- 
spire it. 

Generally,  wickedness  does  no  harm  at  all  to  the  uni- 
verse; and  particularly,  the  wickedness  of  one  man  does  no 
harm  to  another.  It  is  only  harmful  to  him  who  has  it  in 
his  power  to  be  released  from  it,  as  soon  as  he  shall  choose. 

To  my  own  free  will  the  free  will  of  my  neighbour  is  just 
as  indifferent  as  his  poor  breath  and  flesh.  For  though  we 
are  made  especially  for  the  sake  of  one  another,  still  the  ru- 
ling power  of  each  of  us  has  its  own  office  for  otherwise  my 
neighbour's  wickedness  would  be  my  harm,  which  God  has 
not  willed  in  order  that  my  unhappiness  may  not  depend  on 
another. 

The  sun  appears  to  be  poured  down,  and  in  all  directions 
indeed  it  is  diffused,  yet  it  is  not  effused.  For  this  diffu- 
sion is  extension :  Accordingly  its  rays  are  called  Extensions 
[axTives]  because  they  are  extended  [androv  itcTsivedQai].*  But 
one  may  judge  what  kind  of  a  thing  a  ray  is,  if  he  looks  at 
the  sun's  light  passing  through  a  narrow  opening  into  a 
darkened  room,  for  it  is  extended  in  a  right  line,  and  as  it 
were  is  divided  when  it  meets  with  any  solid  body  which 
stands  in  the  way  and  intercepts  the  air  beyond;  but  there 
the  light  remains  fixed  and  does  not  glide  or  fall  off.  Such 
then  ought  to  be  the  out-pouring  and  diffusion  of  the  under- 
standing, and  it  should  in  no  way  be  an  effusion,  but  an  ex- 
tension, and  it  should  make  no  violent  or  impetuous  colli- 
sion with  the  obstacles  which  are  in  its  way;  nor  yet  fall 
down,  but  be  fixed  and  enlighten  that  which  receives  it.  For 
a  body  will  deprive  itself  of  the  illumination,  if  it  does  not 
admit  it. 

He  who  fears  death  either  fears  the  loss  of  sensation  or  a 
different  kind  of  sensation.  But  if  thou  shalt  have  no  sen- 
sation, neither  wilt  thou  feel  any  harm;  and  if  thou  shalt 
acquire  another  kind  of  sensation,  thou  wilt  be  a  different 
kind  of  living  being  and  thou  wilt  not  cease  to  live. 


MEDITATIONS  83 

Men  exist  for  the  sake  of  one  another.  Teach  them  then 
or  bear  with  them. 

In  one  way  an  arrow  moves,  in  another  way  the  mind. 
The  rnind  indeed  both  when  it  exercises  caution  and  when  it 
is  employed  about  inquiry,  moves  straight  onward  not  the 
less,  and  to  its  object. 

Enter  into  every  man's  ruling  faculty ;  and  also  let  every 
other  man  enter  into  thine. 

NOTES 

'  Caius  is  Caius  Julius  Caesar,  the  dictator;  and  Pompeius  is  Cneius 
Pompeius,  named  Magnus. 

*  Areius  was  a  philosopher,  who  was  intimate  with  Augustus. 

*  "  Verus  "  is  a  conjecture  of  Saumaise,  and  perhaps  the  true  reading. 

*  A  piece  of  bad  etymology. 


BOOK  IX 

HE  who  acts  unjustly  acts  impiously.  For  since  the 
universal  nature  has  made  rational  animals  for  the 
sake  of  one  another  to  help  one  another  according 
to  their  deserts,  but  in  no  way  to  injure  one  an- 
other, he  who  transgresses  her  will,  is  clearly  guilty  of  im- 
piety towards  the  highest  divinity.  And  he  too  who  lies  is 
guilty  of  impiety  to  the  same  divinity ;  for  the  universal  na- 
ture is  the  nature  of  things  that  are ;  and  things  that  are  have 
a  relation  to  all  things  that  come  into  existence.^  And 
further,  this  universal  nature  is  named  truth,  and  is  the 
prime  cause  of  all  things  that  are  true.  He  then  who  lies 
intentionally  is  guilty  of  impiety  inasmuch  as  he  acts  un- 
justly by  deceiving;  and  he  also  who  lies  unintentionally, 
inasmuch  as  he  is  at  variance  with  the  universal  nature,  and 
inasmuch  as  he  disturbs  the  order  by  fighting  against  the 
nature  of  the  world;  for  he  fights  against  it,  who  is  moved 
of  himself  to  that  which  is  contrary  to  truth,  for  he  had  re- 
ceived powers  from  nature  through  the  neglect  of  which  he 
is  not  able  now  to  distinguish  falsehood  from  truth.  And 
indeed  he  who  pursues  pleasure  as  good,  and  avoids 
pain  as  evil  is  guilty  of  impiety.  For  of  necessity  such  a 
man  must  often  find  fault  with  the  universal  nature,  alleging 
that  it  assigns  things  to  the  bad  and  the  good  contrary  to 
their  deserts,  because  frequently  the  bad  are  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  pleasure  and  possess  the  things  which  procure  pleas- 
ure, but  the  good  have  pain  for  their  share  and  the  things 
which  cause  pain.  And  further,  he  who  is  afraid  of  pain 
will  sometimes  also  be  afraid  of  some  of  the  things  which 
will  happen  in  the  world,  and  even  this  is  impiety.  And 
he  who  pursues  pleasure  will  not  abstain  from  injustice,  and 
this  is  plainly  impiety.  Now  with  respect  to  the  things  to- 
wards which  the  universal  nature  is  equally  affected — for 


MEDITATIONS  85 

it  would  not  have  made  both,  unless  it  was  equally  affected 
towards  both — towards  these  they  who  wish  to  follow  nature 
should  be  of  the  same  mind  with  it,  and  equally  affected. 
With  respect  to  pain,  then,  and  pleasure,  or  death  and  life,  or 
honour  and  dishonour,  which  the  universal  nature  employs 
equally,  whoever  is  not  equally  affected  is  manifestly  act- 
ing impiously.  And  I  say  that  the  universal  nature  employs 
them  equally,  instead  of  saying  that  they  happen  alike  to 
those  who  are  produced  in  continuous  series  and  to  those 
who  come  after  them  by  virtue  of  a  certain  original  move- 
ment of  Providence,  according  to  which  it  moved  from  a 
certain  beginning  to  this  ordering  of  things,  having  con- 
ceived certain  principles  of  the  things  which  were  to  be,  and 
having  determined  powers  productive  of  beings  and  of 
changes  and  of  such  like  successions. 

It  would  be  a  man's  happiest  lot  to  depart  from  mankind 
without  having  had  any  taste  of  lying  and  hypocrisy  and 
luxury  and  pride.  However  to  breathe  out  one's  life  when 
a  man  has  had  enough  of  these  things  is  the  next  best  voy- 
age, as  the  saying  is.  Hast  thou  determined  to  abide  with 
vice,  and  has  not  experience  yet  induced  thee  to  fly  from  this 
pestilence?  For  the  destruction  of  the  understanding  is  a 
pestilence,  much  more  indeed  than  any  such  corruption  and 
change  of  this  atmosphere  which  surrounds  us.  For  this 
corruption  is  a  pestilence  of  animals  so  far  as  they  are  ani- 
mals ;  but  the  other  is  a  pestilence  of  men  so  far  as  they  are 
men. 

Do  not  despise  death,  but  be  well  content  with  it,  since 
this  too  is  one  of  those  things  which  nature  wills.  For  such 
as  it  is  to  be  young  and  to  grow  old,  and  to  increase  and  to 
reach  maturity,  and  to  have  teeth  and  beard  and  gray  hairs, 
and  to  beget,  and  to  be  pregnant  and  to  bring  forth,  and  all 
the  other  natural  operations  which  the  seasons  of  thy  life 
bring,  such  also  is  dissolution.  This,  then,  is  consistent  with 
the  character  of  a  reflecting  man,  to  be  neither  careless  nor 
impatient  nor  contemptuous  with  respect  to  death,  but  to 
wait  for  it  as  one  of  the  operations  of  nature.  As  thou  now 
waitest  for  the  time  when  the  child  shall  come  out  of  thy 
wife's  womb,  so  be  ready  for  the  time  when  thy  soul  shall 
fall  out  of  this  envelope.    But  if  thou  requirest  also  a  vul- 


86  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

gar  kind  of  comfort  which  shall  reach  thy  heart,  thou  wilt 
be  made  best  reconciled  to  death  by  observing  the  objects 
from  which  thou  art  going  to  be  removed,  and  the  morals  of 
those  with  whom  thy  soul  will  no  longer  be  mingled.  For 
it  is  no  way  right  to  be  offended  with  men,  but  it  is  thy  duty 
to  care  for  them  and  to  bear  with  them  gently;  and  yet  to 
remember  that  thy  departure  will  be  not  from  men  who  have 
the  same  principles  as  thyself.  For  this  is  the  only  thing, 
if  there  be  any,  which  could  draw  us  the  contrary  way  and 
attach  us  to  life,  to  be  permitted  to  live  with  those  who  have 
the  same  principles  as  ourselves.  But  now  thou  seest  how 
great  is  the  trouble  arising  from  the  discordance  of  those 
who  live  together,  so  that  thou  mayst  say,  Come  quick,  O 
death,  lest  perchance  I,  too,  should  forget  myself. 

He  who  does  wrong  does  wrong  against  himself.  He 
who  acts  unjustly  acts  unjustly  to  himself,  because  he  makes 
himself  bad. 

He  often  acts  unjustly  who  does  not  do  a  certain  thing; 
not  only  he  who  does  a  certain  thing. 

Thy  present  opinion  founded  on  understanding,  and  thy 
present  conduct  directed  to  social  good,  and  thy  present  dis- 
position of  contentment  with  everything  which  happens* — 
that  is  enough. 

Wipe  out  imagination :  check  desire :  extinguish  appetite : 
keep  the  ruling  faculty  in  its  own  power. 

Among  the  animals  which  have  not  reason  one  life  is  dis- 
tributed ;  but  among  reasonable  animals  one  intelligent  soul 
is  distributed :  just  as  there  is  one  earth  of  all  things  which 
are  of  an  earthy  nature,  and  we  see  by  one  light,  and  breathe 
one  air,  all  of  us  that  have  the  faculty  of  vision  and  all  that 
have  life. 

All  things  which  participate  in  anything  which  is  com- 
mon to  them  all  move  towards  that  which  is  of  the  same 
kind  with  themselves.  Everything  which  is  earthly  turns 
towards  the  earth,  everything  which  is  liquid  flows  together 
and  everything  which  is  of  an  aerial  kind  does  the  same,  so 
that  they  require  something  to  keep  them  asunder,  and  the 
application  of  force.  Fire  indeed  moves  upwards  on  account 
of  the  elemental  fire,  but  it  is  so  ready  to  be  kindled  together 
with  all  the  fire  which  is  here,  that  even  every  substance 


MEDITATIONS  87 

which  is  somewhat  dry,  is  easily  ignited  because  there  is  less 
mingled  with  it  of  that  which  is  a  hindrance  to  ignition. 
Accordingly  then  everything  also  which  participates  in  the 
common  intelligent  nature  moves  in  like  manner  towards 
that  which  is  of  the  same  kind  with  itself,  or  moves  even 
more.  For  so  much  as  it  is  superior  in  comparison  with  all 
other  things,  in  the  same  degree  also  is  it  more  ready  to 
mingle  with  and  to  be  fused  with  that  which  is  akin  to  it. 
Accordingly  among  animals  devoid  of  reason  we  find  swarms 
of  bees,  and  herds  of  cattle,  and  the  nurture  of  young  birds, 
and  in  a  manner,  loves ;  for  even  in  animals  there  are  souls, 
and  that  power  which  brings  them  together  is  seen  to  exert 
itself  in  the  superior  degree,  and  in  such  a  way  as  never  has 
been  observed  in  plants  nor  in  stones  nor  in  trees.  But  in 
rational  animals  there  are  political  communities  and  friend- 
ships, and  families  and  meetings  of  people;  and  in  wars, 
treaties  and  armistices.  But  in  the  things  which  are  still 
superior,  even  though  they  are  separated  from  one  another, 
unity  in  a  manner  exists,  as  in  the  stars.  Thus  the  ascent  to 
the  higher  degree  is  able  to  produce  a  sympathy  even  in 
things  which  are  separated.  See,  then,  what  now  takes 
place.  For  only  intelligent  animals  have  now  forgotten  this 
mutual  desire  and  inclination,  and  in  them  alone  the  property 
of  flowing  together  is  not  seen.  But  still  though  men 
strive  to  avoid  [this  union],  they  are  caught  and  held 
by  it,  for  their  nature  is  too  strong  for  them ;  and  thou  wilt 
see  what  I  say  if  thou  only  observest.  Sooner,  then,  will 
one  find  anything  earthy  which  comes  in  contact  with  no 
earthy  thing  than  a  man  altogether  separated  from  other 
men. 

Both  man  and  God  and  the  universe  produce  fruit;  at 
the  proper  seasons  each  produce  it.  But  if  usage  has  espe- 
cially fixed  these  terms  to  the  vine  and  like  things,  this  is 
nothing.  Reason  produces  fruit  both  for  all  and  for  itself, 
and  there  are  produced  from  it  other  things  of  the  same  kind 
as  reason  itself. 

If  thou  art  able,  correct  by  teaching  those  who  do  wrong; 

but  if  thou  canst  not,  remember  that  indulgence  is  given  to 

thee  for  this  purpose.     And  the  gods,  too,  are  indulgent  to 

such  persons ;  and  for  some  purposes  they  even  help  them  to 

3x 


88  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

get  health,  wealth,  reputation;  so  kind  they  are.  And  it  is 
in  thy  power  also ;  or  say,  who  hinders  thee  ? 

Labour  not  as  one  who  is  wretched,  nor  yet  as  one  who 
would  be  pitied  or  admired :  but  direct  thy  will  to  one  thing 
only,  to  put  thyself  in  motion  and  to  check  thyself,  as  the 
social  reason  requires. 

To-day  I  have  got  out  of  all  trouble,  or  rather  I  have  cast 
out  all  trouble,  for  it  was  not  outside,  but  within  and  in  my 
opinions. 

All  things  are  the  same,  familiar  in  experience,  and  ephem- 
eral in  time,  and  worthless  in  the  matter.  Everything 
now  is  just  as  it  was  in  the  time  of  those  whom  we  have 
buried. 

Things  stand  outside  of  us,  themselves  by  themselves, 
neither  knowing  aught  of  themselves,  nor  expressing  any 
judgment.  What  is  it,  then,  which  does  judge  about  them? 
The  ruling  faculty. 

Not  in  passivity,  but  in  activity  lie  the  evil  and  the  good 
of  the  rational  social  animal,  just  as  his  virtue  and  his  vice 
lie  not  in  passivity,  but  in  activity. 

For  the  stone  which  has  been  thrown  up  it  is  no  evil  to 
come  down,  nor  indeed  any  good  to  have  been  carried  up. 

Penetrate  inwards  into  men's  leading  principles,  and  thou 
wilt  see  what  judges  thou  art  afraid  of,  and  what  kind  of 
judges  they  are  of  themselves. 

All  things  are  changing:  and  thou  thyself  art  in  contin- 
uous mutation  and  in  a  manner  in  continuous  destruction, 
and  the  whole  universe  too. 

It  is  thy  duty  to  leave  another  man's  wrongful  act  there 
where  it  is. 

Termination  of  activity,  cessation  from  movement  and 
opinion,  and  in  a  sense  their  death,  is  no  evil.  Turn  thy 
thoughts  now  to  the  consideration  of  thy  life,  thy  life  as  a 
child,  as  a  youth,  thy  manhood,  thy  old  age,  for  in  these  also 
every  change  was  a  death.  Is  this  anything  to  fear  ?  Turn 
thy  thoughts  now  to  thy  life  under  thy  grandfather,  then  to 
thy  life  under  thy  mother,  then  to  thy  life  under  thy  father ; 
and  as  thou  findest  many  other  differences  and  changes  and 
terminations,  ask  thyself.  Is  this  anything  to  fear?     In  like 


MEDITATIONS  89 

manner,  then,  neither  are  the  termination  and  cessation  and 
change  of  thy  whole  Hfe  a  thing  to  be  afraid  of. 

Hasten  [to  examine]  thy  own  ruHng  faculty  and  that  of 
the  universe  and  that  of  thy  neighbour :  thy  own  that  thou 
mayst  make  it  just :  and  that  of  the  universe,  that  thou  mayst 
remember  of  what  thou  art  a  part ;  and  that  of  thy  neighbour, 
that  thou  mayst  know  whether  he  has  acted  ignorantly  or 
with  knowledge,  and  that  thou  mayst  also  consider  that  his 
ruling  faculty  is  akin  to  thine. 

As  thou  thyself  art  a  component  part  of  a  social  system, 
so  let  every  act  of  thine  be  a  component  part  of  a  social  life. 
Whatever  act  of  thine  then  has  no  reference  either  immedi- 
ately or  remotely  to  a  social  end,  this  tears  asunder  thy  life, 
and  does  not  allow  it  to  be  one,  and  it  is  of  the  nature  of  a 
mutiny,  just  as  when  in  a  popular  assembly  a  man  acting  by 
himself  stands  apart  from  the  general  agreement. 

Quarrels  of  little  children  and  their  sports,  and  poor  spir- 
its carrying  about  dead  bodies  [such  is  everything]  ;  and  so 
what  is  exhibited  in  the  representation  of  the  mansions  of 
the  dead  strikes  our  eyes  more  clearly. 

Examine  into  the  quality  of  the  form  of  an  object,  and 
detach  it  altogether  from  its  material  part,  and  then  contem- 
plate it;  then  determine  the  time,  the  longest  which  a  thing 
of  this  peculiar  form  is  naturally  made  to  endure. 

Thou  hast  endured  infinite  troubles  through  not  being 
contented  with  thy  ruling  faculty,  when  it  does  the  things 
which  it  is  constituted  by  nature  to  do.  But  enough*  [of 
this] . 

When  another  blames  thee  or  hates  thee,  or  when  men  say 
about  thee  anything  injurious,  approach  their  poor  souls, 
penetrate  within,  and  see  what  kind  of  men  they  are.  Thou 
wilt  discover  that  there  is  no  reason  to  take  any  trouble  that 
these  men  may  have  this  or  that  opinion  about  thee.  How- 
ever thou  must  be  well  disposed  towards  them,  for  by  nature 
they  are  friends.  And  the  gods  too  aid  them  in  all  ways,  by 
dreams,  by  signs,  towards  the  attainment  of  those  things  on 
which  they  set  a  value.* 

The  periodic  movements  of  the  universe  are  the  same,  up 
and  down  from  age  to  age.  And  either  the  universal  intel- 
ligence puts  itself  in  motion  for  every  separate  effect,  and 


90  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

if  this  is  so,  be  thou  content  with  that  which  is  the  result  of 
its  activity;  or  it  puts  itself  in  motion  once,  and  everything 
else  comes  by  way  of  sequence  in  a  manner;  or  indivisible 
elements  are  the  origin  of  all  things. — In  a  word,  if  there  is 
a  god,  all  is  well;  and  if  chance  rules,  do  not  thou  also  be 
governed  by  it. 

Soon  will  the  earth  cover  us  all :  then  the  earth,  too,  will 
change,  and  the  things  also  which  result  from  change  will 
continue  to  change  for  ever,  and  these  again  for  ever.  For 
if  a  man  reflects  on  the  changes  and  transformations  which 
follow  one  another  like  wave  after  wave,  and  their  rapidity, 
he  will  despise  everything  which  is  perishable. 

The  universal  cause  is  like  a  winter  torrent:  it  carries 
everything  along  with  it.  But  how  worthless  are  all  these 
poor  people  who  are  engaged  in  matters  political,  and,  as 
they  suppose,  are  playing  the  philosopher!  All  drivellers. 
Well  then,  man :  do  what  nature  now  requires.  Set  thyself 
in  motion,  if  it  is  in  thy  power,  and  do  not  look  about  thee 
to  see  if  any  one  will  observe  it;  nor  yet  expect  Plato's  Re- 
public :  but  be  content  if  the  smallest  thing  goes  on  well,  and 
consider  such  an  event  to  be  no  small  matter.  For  who  can 
change  men's  opinions?  and  without  a  change  of  opinions 
what  else  is  there  than  the  slavery  of  men  who  groan  while 
they  pretend  to  obey  ?  Come  now  and  tell  me  of  Alexander 
and  Philippus  and  Demetrius  of  Phalerum.  They  them- 
selves shall  judge  whether  they  discovered  what  the  common 
nature  required,  and  trained  themselves  accordingly.  But  if 
they  acted  like  tragedy  heroes,  no  one  has  condemned  me  to 
imitate  them.  Simple  and  modest  is  the  work  of  philosophy. 
Draw  me  not  aside  to  insolence  and  pride. 

Look  down  from  above  on  the  countless  herds  of  men  and 
their  countless  solemnities,  and  the  infinitely  varied  voyag- 
ings  in  storms  and  calms,  and  the  differences  among  those 
who  are  bom,  who  live  together,  and  die.  And  consider, 
too,  the  life  lived  by  others  in  olden  time,  and  the  life  of 
those  who  will  live  after  thee,  and  the  life  now  lived  among 
barbarous  nations,  and  how  many  know  not  even  thy  name, 
and  how  many  will  soon  forget  it,  and  how  they  who  perhaps 
now  are  praising  thee  will  very  soon  blame  thee,  and  that 


MEDITATIONS  9 1 

neither  a  posthumous  name  is  of  any  value,  nor  reputation, 
nor  anything  else. 

Let  there  be  freedom  from  perturbations  with  respect  to 
the  things  which  come  from  the  external  cause ;  and  let  there 
be  justice  in  the  things  done  by  virtue  of  the  internal  cause, 
that  is,  let  there  be  movement  and  action  terminating  in  this, 
in  social  acts,  for  this  is  according  to  thy  nature. 

Thou  canst  remove  out  of  the  way  many  useless  things 
among  those  which  disturb  thee,  for  they  lie  entirely  in  thy 
opinion ;  and  thou  wilt  then  gain  for  thyself  ample  space  by 
comprehending  the  whole  universe  in  thy  mind,  and  by  con- 
templating the  eternity  of  time,  and  observing  the  rapid 
change  of  every  several  thing,  how  short  is  the  time  from 
birth  to  dissolution,  and  the  illimitable  time  before  birth  as 
well  as  the  equally  boundless  time  after  dissolution. 

All  that  thou  seest  will  quickly  perish,  and  those  who 
have  been  spectators  of  its  dissolution  will  very  soon  perish 
too.  And  he  who  dies  at  the  extremest  old  age  will  be 
brought  into  the  same  condition  with  him  who  died  pre- 
maturely. 

What  are  these  men's  leading  principles,  and  about  what 
kind  of  things  are  they  busy,  and  for  what  kind  of  reasons 
do  they  love  and  honour?  Imagine  that  thou  seest  their 
poor  souls  laid  bare.  When  they  think  that  they  do  harm 
by  their  blame  or  good  by  their  praise,  what  an  idea ! 

Loss  is  nothing  else  than  change.  But  the  universal  na- 
ture delights  in  change,  and  in  obedience  to  her  all  things 
are  now  done  well,  and  from  eternity  have  been  done  in  like 
form,  and  will  be  such  to  time  without  end.  What,  then, 
dost  thou  say?  That  all  things  have  been  and  all  things  al- 
ways will  be  bad,  and  that  no  power  has  ever  been  found  in 
so  many  gods  to  rectify  these  things,  but  the  world  has  been 
condemned  to  be  bound  in  never  ceasing  evil  ? 

The  rottenness  of  the  matter  which  is  the  foundation  of 
everything !  water,  dust,  bones,  filth :  or  again,  marble  rocks, 
the  callosities  of  the  earth;  and  gold  and  silver,  the  sedi- 
ments; and  garments,  only  bits  of  hair;  and  purple  dye, 
blood:  and  everything  else  is  of  the  same  kind.  And  that 
which  is  of  the  nature  of  breath  is  also  another  thing  of  the 
same  kind,  changing  from  this  to  that. 


92  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

Enough  of  this  wretched  Hfe  and  murmuring  and  apish 
tricks.  Why  art  thou  disturbed?  What  is  there  new  in 
this?  What  unsettles  thee?  Is  it  the  form  of  the  thing? 
Look  at  it.  Or  is  it  the  matter?  Look  at  it.  But  besides 
these  there  is  nothing.  Towards  the  gods,  then,  now  be- 
come at  last  more  simple  and  better.  It  is  the  same  whether 
we  examine  these  things  for  a  hundred  years  or  three. 

If  any  man  has  done  wrong,  the  harm  is  his  own.  But 
perhaps  he  has  not  done  wrong. 

Either  all  things  proceed  from  one  intelligent  source  and 
come  together  as  in  one  body,  and  the  part  ought  not  to  find 
fault  with  what  is  done  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole :  or 
there  are  only  atoms,  and  nothing  else  than  mixture  and  dis- 
persion. Why,  then,  art  thou  disturbed  ?  Say  to  the  ruling 
faculty,  Art  thou  dead,  art  thou  corrupted,  art  thou  playing 
the  hypocrite,  art  thou  become  a  beast,  dost  thou  herd  and 
feed  with  the  rest?^ 

Either  the  gods  have  no  power  or  they  have  power.  If, 
then,  they  have  no  power,  why  dost  thou  pray  to  them  ?  But 
if  they  have  power,  why  dost  thou  not  pray  for  them  to  give 
thee  the  faculty  of  not  fearing  any  of  the  things  which  thou 
fearest,  or  of  not  desiring  any  of  the  things  which  thou  de- 
sirest,  or  not  being  pained  at  anything,  rather  than  pray 
that  any  of  these  things  should  not  happen  or  happen?  for 
certainly  if  they  can  co-operate  with  men,  they  can  co-operate 
for  these  purposes.  But  perhaps  thou  wilt  say,  the  gods 
have  placed  them  in  thy  power.  Well,  then,  is  it  not  better 
to  use  what  is  in  thy  power  like  a  free  man  than  to  desire  in 
a  slavish  and  abject  way  what  is  not  in  thy  power?  And 
who  has  told  thee  that  the  gods  do  not  aid  us  even  in  the 
things  which  are  in  our  power?  Begin,  then,  to  pray  for 
such  things,  and  thou  wilt  see.  One  man  prays  thus :  How 
shall  I  be  able  to  lie  with  that  woman  ?  Do  thou  pray  thus : 
How  shall  I  desire  to  lie  with  her?  Another  prays  thus: 
How  shall  I  be  released  from  this  ?  Another  prays :  How 
shall  I  not  desire  to  be  released  ?  Another  thus :  How  shall 
I  not  lose  my  little  son?  Thou  thus:  How  shall  I  not  be 
afraid  to  lose  him  ?  In  fine,  turn  thy  prayers  this  way,  and 
see  what  comes. 

Epicurus  says,  In  my  sickness  my  conversation  was  not 


MEDITATIONS 


93 


about  my  bodily  sufferings,  nor,  says  he,  did  I  talk  on  such 
subjects  to  those  who  visited  me;  but  I  continued  to  dis- 
course on  the  nature  of  things  as  before,  keeping  to  this 
main  point,  how  the  mind,  while  participating  in  such  move- 
ments as  go  on  in  the  poor  flesh,  shall  be  free  from  perturba- 
tions and  maintain  its  proper  good.  Nor  did  I,  he  says, 
give  the  physicians  an  opportunity  of  putting  on  solemn 
looks,  as  if  they  were  doing  something  great,  but  my  life 
went  on  well  and  happily.  Do,  then,  the  same  that  he  did 
both  in  sickness,  if  thou  art  sick,  and  in  any  other  circum- 
stances; for  never  to  desert  philosophy  in  any  events  that 
may  befall  us,  nor  to  hold  trifling  talk  either  with  an  igno- 
rant man  or  with  one  unacquainted  with  nature,  is  a  princi- 
ple of  all  schools  of  philosophy ;  but  to  be  intent  only  on  that 
which  thou  art  now  doing  and  on  the  instrument  by  which 
thou  doest  it. 

When  thou  art  offended  with  any  man's  shameless  con- 
duct, immediately  ask  thyself.  Is  it  possible,  then,  that  shame- 
less men  should  not  be  in  the  world?  It  is  not  possible. 
Do  not,  then,  require  what  is  impossible.  For  this  man  also 
is  one  of  those  shameless  men  who  must  of  necessity  be  in 
the  world.  Let  the  same  considerations  be  present  to  thy 
mind  in  the  case  of  the  knave,  and  the  faithless  man,  and  of 
every  man  who  does  wrong  in  any  way.  For  at  the  same 
time  that  thou  dost  remind  thyself  that  it  is  impossible  that 
such  kind  of  men  should  not  exist,  thou  wilt  become  more 
kindly  disposed  towards  every  one  individually.  It  is  useful 
to  perceive  this,  too,  immediately  when  the  occasion  arises, 
what  virtue  nature  has  given  to  man  to  oppose  to  every 
wrongful  act.  For  she  has  given  to  man,  as  an  antidote 
against  the  stupid  man,  mildness,  and  against  another  kind 
of  man  some  other  power.  And  in  all  cases  it  is  possible  for 
thee  to  correct  by  teaching  the  man  who  is  gone  astray :  for 
every  man  who  errs  misses  his  object  and  is  gone  astray. 
Besides  wherein  hast  thou  been  injured?  For  thou  wilt  find 
that  no  one  among  those  against  whom  thou  art  irritated  has 
done  anything  by  which  thy  mind  could  be  made  worse :  but 
that  which  is  evil  to  thee  and  harmful  has  its  foundation  only 
in  the  mind.  And  what  harm  is  done  or  what  is  there 
strange,  if  the  man  who  has  not  been  instructed  does  the 


94  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

acts  of  an  uninstructed  man?  Consider  whether  thou 
shouldst  not  rather  blame  thyself,  because  thou  didst  not  ex- 
pect such  a  man  to  err  in  such  a  way.  For  thou  hadst  means 
given  thee  by  thy  reason  to  suppose  that  it  was  likely  that  he 
would  commit  this  error,  and  yet  thou  hast  forgotten  and  art 
amazed  that  he  has  erred.  But  most  of  all  when  thou  blam- 
est  a  man  as  faithless  or  ungrateful,  turn  to  thyself.  For 
the  fault  is  manifestly  thy  own,  whether  thou  didst  trust  that 
a  man  who  had  such  a  disposition  would  keep  his  promise, 
or  when  conferring  thy  kindness  thou  didst  not  confer  it  ab- 
solutely, nor  yet  in  such  way  as  to  have  received  from  thy 
very  act  all  the  profit.  For  what  more  dost  thou  want  when 
thou  hast  done  a  man  a  service?  art  thou  not  content  that 
thou  hast  done  something  conformable  to  thy  nature,  and 
dost  thou  seek  to  be  paid  for  it?  just  as  if  the  eye  demanded 
a  recompense  for  seeing,  or  the  feet  for  walking.  For  as 
these  members  are  formed  for  a  particular  purpose,  and  by 
working  according  to  their  several  constitutions  obtain  what 
is  their  own ;  so  also  as  man  is  formed  by  nature  to  acts  of 
benevolence,  when  he  has  done  anything  benevolent  or  in 
any  other  way  conducive  to  the  common  interest,  he  has  acted 
conformably  to  his  constitution,  and  he  gets  what  is  his  own. 

NOTES 

* "  As  there  is  not  any  action  or  natural  event,  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted with,  so  single  and  unconnected  as  not  to  have  a  respect  to 
some  other  actions  and  events,  so,  possibly  each  of  them,  when  it  has 
not  an  immediate,  may  yet  have  a  remote,  natural  relation  to  other 
actions  and  events,  much  beyond  the  compass  of  this  present  world." 
Again :  "Things  seemingly  the  most  in  significant  imaginable,  are  per- 
petually observed  to  be  necessary  conditions  to  other  things  of  the  great- 
est importance ;  so  that  any  one  thing  whatever,  may,  for  aught  we 
know  to  the  contrary,  be  a  necessary  condition  to  any  other." — Butler's 
Analogy,  Chap.  7.   See  all  the  chapter. 

*  There  is  some  corruption  at  the  end  of  this  section :  but  I  think 
that  the  translation  expresses  the  emperor's  meaning.  Whether  intelli- 
gence rules  all  things  or  chance  rules,  a  man  must  not  be  disturbed.  He 
must  use  the  power  that  he  has,  and  be  tranquil. 


BOOKX 

WILT  thou,  then,  my  soul,  never  be  good  and  simple 
and  one  and  naked,  more  manifest  than  the  body 
which  surrounds  thee?  Wilt  thou  never  enjoy 
an  affectionate  and  contented  disposition  ?  Wilt 
thou  never  be  full  and  without  a  want  of  any  kind,  longing 
for  nothing  more,  nor  desiring  anything,,  either  animate  or 
inanimate,  for  the  enjoyment  of  pleasures?  nor  yet  desiring 
time  wherein  thou  shalt  have  longer  enjoyment,  or  place,  or 
pleasant  climate,  or  society  of  men  with  whom  thou  mayst 
live  in  harmony?  but  wilt  thou  be  satisfied  with  thy  present 
condition,  and  pleased  with  all  that  is  about  thee,  and  wilt 
thou  convince  thyself  that  thou  hast  everything  and  that  it 
comes  from  the  gods,  that  everything  is  well  for  thee,  and 
will  be  well  whatever  shall  please  them,  and  whatever  they 
shall  give  for  the  conservation  of  the  perfect  living  being,* 
the  good  and  just  and  beautiful,  which  generates  and  holds 
together  all  things,  and  contains  and  embraces  all  things 
which  are  dissolved  for  the  production  of  other  like  things? 
Wilt  thou  never  be  such  that  thou  shalt  so  dwell  in  com- 
munity with  gods  and  men  as  neither  to  find  fault  with  them 
at  all,  nor  to  be  condemned  by  them? 

Observe  what  thy  nature  requires,  so  far  as  thou  art  gov- 
erned by  nature  only :  then  do  it  and  accept  it,  if  thy  nature, 
so  far  as  thou  art  a  living  being,  shall  not  be  made  worse  by 
it.  And  next  thou  must  observe  what  thy  nature  requires 
so  far  as  thou  art  a  living  being.  And  all  this  thou  mayst 
allow  thyself,  if  thy  nature,  so  far  as  thou  art  a  rational  ani- 
mal, shall  not  be  made  worse  by  it.  But  the  rational  animal 
is  consequently  also  a  political  [social]  animal.  Use  these 
rules,  then,  and  trouble  thyself  about  nothing  else. 

Everything  which  happens  either  happens  in  such  wise  as 
thou  art  formed  by  nature  to  bear  it,  or  as  thou  art  not 
32  95 


96  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

formed  by  nature  to  bear  it.  If,  then,  it  happens  to  thee  in 
such  way  as  thou  art  formed  by  nature  to  bear  it,  do  not 
complain,  but  bear  it  as  thou  art  formed  by  nature  to  bear  it. 
But  if  it  happens  in  such  wise  as  thou  art  not  formed  by 
nature  to  bear  it,  do  not  complain,  for  it  will  perish  after  it 
has  consumed  thee.  Remember,  however,  that  thou  art 
formed  by  nature  to  bear  everything,  with  respect  to  which 
it  depends  on  thy  opinion  to  make  it  endurable  and  tolerable, 
by  thinking  that  it  is  either  thy  interest  or  thy  duty  to  do  this. 

If  a  man  is  mistaken,  instruct  him  kindly  and  show  him 
his  error.  But  if  thou  art  not  able,  blame  thyself,  or  blame 
not  even  thyself. 

Whatever  may  happen  to  thee,  it  was  prepared  for  thee 
from  all  eternity;  and  the  implication  of  causes  was  from 
eternity  spinning  the  thread  of  thy  being,  and  of  that  which 
is  incident  to  it. 

Whether  the  universe  is  [a  concourse  of]  atoms,  or  na- 
ture [is  a  system],  let  this  first  be  established,  that  I  am  a 
part  of  the  whole  which  is  governed  by  nature;  next,  I  am 
in  a  manner  intimately  related  to  the  parts  which  are  of  the 
same  kind  with  myself.  For  remembering  this,  inasmuch 
as  I  am  a  part,  I  shall  be  discontented  with  none  of  the  things 
which  are  assigned  to  me  out  of  the  whole;  for  nothing  is 
injurious  to  the  part,  if  it  is  for  the  advantage  of  the  whole. 
For  the  whole  contains  nothing  which  is  not  for  its  advan- 
tage ;  and  all  natures  indeed  have  this  common  principle,  but 
the  nature  of  the  universe  has  this  principle  besides,  that  it 
can  not  be  compelled  even  by  an  external  cause  to  generate 
anything  harmful  to  itself.  By  remembering,  then,  that  I  am 
a  part  of  such  a  whole,  I  shall  be  content  with  everything 
that  happens.  And  inasmuch  as  I  am  in  a  manner  inti- 
mately related  to  the  parts  which  are  of  the  same  kind  with 
myself,  I  shall  do  nothing  unsocial,  but  I  shall  rather  direct 
myself  to  the  things  which  are  of  the  same  kind  with  myself, 
and  I  shall  turn  all  my  efforts  to  the  common  interest,  and 
divert  them  from  the  contrary.  Now,  if  these  things  are 
done  so,  life  must  flow  on  happily,  just  as  thou  mayst  observe 
that  the  life  of  a  citizen  is  happy,  who  continues  a  course  of 
action  which  is  advantageous  to  his  fellow-citizens,  and  is 
content  with  whatever  the  state  may  assign  to  him. 


MEDITATIONS  97 

The  parts  of  the  whole,  everything,  I  mean,  which  is  nat- 
urally comprehended  in  the  universe,  must  of  necessity  per- 
ish ;  but  let  this  be  understood  in  this  sense,  that  they  must 
undergo  change.  But  if  this  is  naturally  both  an  evil  and 
a  necessity  for  the  parts,  the  whole  would  not  continue  to 
exist  in  a  good  condition,  the  parts  being  subject  to  change 
and  constituted  so  as  to  perish  in  various  ways.  For 
whether  did  nature  herself  design  to  do  evil  to  the  things 
which  are  parts  of  herself,  and  to  make  them  subject  to  evil 
and  of  necessity  fall  into  evil,  or  have  such  results  happened 
without  her  knowing  it?  Both  these  suppositions,  indeed, 
are  incredible.  But  if  a  man  should  even  drop  the  term 
Nature  [as  an  efficient  power],  and  should  speak  of  these 
things  as  natural,  even  then  it  would  be  ridiculous  to  affirm 
at  the  same  time  that  the  parts  of  the  whole  are  in  their  na- 
ture subject  to  change,  and  at  the  same  time  to  be  surprised 
or  vexed  as  if  something  were  happening  contrary  to  nature, 
particularly  as  the  dissolution  of  things  is  into  those  things 
of  which  each  thing  is  composed.  For  there  is  either  a  dis- 
persion of  the  elements  out  of  which  everything  has  been 
compounded,  or  a  change  from  the  solid  to  the  earthy  and 
from  the  airy  to  the  aerial,  so  that  these  parts  are  taken  back 
into  the  universal  reason,  whether  this  at  certain  periods  is 
consumed  by  fire  or  renewed  by  eternal  changes.  And  do 
not  imagine  that  the  solid  and  the  airy  part  belong  to  thee 
from  the  time  of  generation.  For  all  this  received  its  accre- 
tion only  yesterday  and  the  day  before,  as  one  may  say,  from 
the  food  and  the  air  which  is  inspired.  This,  then,  which 
has  received  [the  accretion],  changes,  not  that  which  thy 
mother  brought  forth.  But  suppose  that  this  [which  thy 
mother  brought  forth]  implicates  thee  very  much  with  that 
other  part,  which  has  the  peculiar  quality  [of  change],  this 
is  nothing  in  fact  in  the  way  of  objection  to  what  is  said.^ 

When  thou  hast  assumed  these  names,  good,  modest,  true, 
rational,  a  man  of  equanimity,  and  magnanimous,  take  care 
that  thou  dost  not  change  these  names ;  and  if  thou  shouldst 
lose  them,  quickly  return  to  them.  And  remember  that  the 
term  Rational  was  intended  to  signify  a  discriminating  at- 
tention to  every  several  thing  and  freedom  from  negligence; 
and  that   Equanimity   is  the  voluntary  acceptance   of   the 


9$  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

things  which  are  assigned  to  thee  by  the  common  nature; 
and  that  Magnanimity  is  the  elevation  of  the  intelHgent  part 
above  the  pleasurable  or  painful  sensations  of  the  flesh,  and 
above  that  poor  thing  called  fame,  and  death,  and  all  such 
things.  If,  then,  thou  maintainest  thyself  in  the  possession 
of  these  names,  without  desiring  to  be  called  by  these  names 
by  others,  thou  wilt  be  another  person  and  wilt  enter  on  an- 
other life.  For  to  continue  to  be  such  as  thou  hast  hitherto 
been,  and  to  be  torn  in  pieces  and  defiled  in  such  a  life,  is  the 
character  of  a  very  stupid  man  and  one  overfond  of  his  life, 
and  like  those  half-devoured  fighters  with  wild  beasts,  who 
though  covered  with  wounds  and  gore,  still  entreat  to  be 
kept  to  the  following  day,  though  they  will  be  exposed  in 
the  same  state  to  the  same  claws  and  bites.^  Therefore  fix 
thyself  in  the  possession  of  these  few  names :  and  if  thou  art 
able  to  abide  in  them,  abide  as  if  thou  wast  removed  to  cer- 
tain islands  of  the  Happy.*  But  if  thou  shalt  perceive  that 
thou  fallest  out  of  them  and  dost  not  maintain  thy  hold,  go 
courageously  into  some  nook  where  thou  shalt  maintain 
them,  or  even  depart  at  once  from  life,  not  in  passion,  but 
with  simplicity  and  freedom  and  modesty,  after  doing  this 
one  [laudable]  thing  at  least  in  thy  life,  to  have  gone  out  of 
it  thus.  In  order,  however,  to  the  remembrance  of  these 
names,  it  will  greatly  help  thee,  if  thou  rememberest  the 
gods,  and  that  they  wish  not  to  be  flattered,  but  wish  all  rea- 
sonable beings  to  be  made  like  themselves;  and  if  thou  re- 
memberest that  what  does  the  work  of  a  fig-tree  is  a  fig-tree, 
and  that  what  does  the  work  of  a  dog  is  a  dog,  and  that  what 
does  the  work  of  a  bee  is  a  bee,  and  that  what  does  the  work 
of  a  man  is  a  man. 

Mimi,*^  war,  astonishment,  torpor,  slavery,  will  daily 
wipe  out  those  holy  principles  of  thine.  *How  many  things 
without  studying  nature  dost  thou  imagine,  and  how  many 
dost  thou  neglect?  But  it  is  thy  duty  so  to  look  on  and  so 
to  do  every  thing,  that  at  the  same  time  the  power  of  dealing 
with  circumstances  is  perfected,  and  the  contemplative  fac- 
ulty is  exercised,  and  the  confidence  which  comes  from  the 
knowledge  of  each  several  thing  is  maintained  without  show- 
ing it,  but  yet  not  concealed.  For  when  wilt  thou  enjoy 
simplicity,  when  gravity,  and  when  the  knowledge  of  every 


MEDITATIONS 


99 


several  thing,  both  what  it  is  in  substance,  and  what  place 
it  has  in  the  universe,  and  how  long  it  is  formed  to  exist  and 
of  what  things  it  is  compounded,  and  to  whom  it  can  belong, 
and  who  are  able  to  give  it  and  take  it  away? 

A  spider  is  proud  when  it  has  caught  a  fly,  and  another 
when  he  has  caught  a  poor  hare,  and  another  when  he  has 
taken  a  little  fish  in  a  net,  and  another  when  he  has  taken 
wild-boars,  and  another  when  he  has  taken  bears,  and  an- 
other when  he  has  taken  Sarmatians.  Are  not  these  rob- 
bers, if  thou  examinest  their  opinions?* 

Acquire  the  contemplative  way  of  seeing  how  all  things 
change  into  one  another,  and  constantly  attend  to  it,  and 
exercise  thyself  about  this  part  [of  philosophy].  For  noth- 
ing is  so  much  adapted  to  produce  magnanimity.  Such  a 
man  has  put  off  the  body,  and  he  sees  that  he  must,  no  one 
knows  how  soon,  go  away  from  among  men  and  leave  every- 
thing here,  he  gives  himself  up  entirely  to  just  doing  in  all 
his  actions,  and  in  everything  else  that  happens  he  resigns 
himself  to  the  universal  nature.  But  as  to  what  any  man 
shall  say  or  think  about  him  or  do  against  him,  he  never 
even  thinks  of  it,  being  himself  contented  with  these  two 
things,  with  acting  justly  in  what  he  now  does,  and  being 
satisfied  with  what  is  now  assigned  to  him ;  and  he  lays  aside 
all  distracting  and  busy  pursuits,  and  desires  nothing  else 
than  to  accomplish  the  straight  course  through  the  law,'^  and 
by  accomplishing  the  straight  course  to  follow  God. 

What  need  is  there  of  suspicious  fear,  since  it  is  in  thy 
power  to  inquire  what  ought  to  be  done  ?  And  if  thou  seest 
clear,  go  by  this  way  content,  without  turning  back :  but  if 
thou  dost  not  see  clear,  stop  and  take  the  best  advisers.  But 
if  any  other  things  oppose  thee,  go  on  according  to  thy  pow- 
ers with  due  consideration,  keeping  to  that  which  appears 
to  be  just.  For  it  is  best  to  reach  this  object,  and  if  thou 
dost  fail,  let  thy  failure  be  in  attempting  this.  He  who 
follows  reason  in  all  things  is  both  tranquil  and  active  at  the 
same  time,  and  also  cheerful  and  collected. 

Inquire  of  thyself  as  soon  as  thou  wakest  from  sleep 
whether  it  will  make  any  difference  to  thee,  if  another  does 
what  is  just  and  right.     It  will  make  no  difference. 

Thou  hast  not  forgotten,  I  suppose,  that  those  who  assume 


lOO  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

arrogant  airs  in  bestowing  their  praise  or  blame  on  others, 
are  such  as  they  are  at  bed  and  at  board,  and  thou  hast  not 
forgotten  what  they  do,  and  what  they  avoid  and  what  they 
pursue,  and  how  they  steal  and  how  they  rob,  not  with  hands 
and  feet,  but  with  their  most  valuable  part,  by  means  of 
which  there  is  produced,  when  a  man  chooses,  fidelity,  mod- 
esty, truth,  law,  a  good  daemon  [happiness]  ? 

To  her  who  gives  and  takes  back  all,  to  Nature,  the  man 
who  is  instructed  and  modest  says,  Give  what  thou  wilt; 
take  back  what  thou  wilt.  And  he  says  this  not  proudly, 
but  obediently  and  well  pleased  with  her. 

Short  is  the  little  which  remains  to  thee  of  life.  Live  as 
on  a  mountain.  For  it  makes  no  difference  whether  a  man 
lives  there  or  here,  if  he  lives  everywhere  in  the  world  as  in 
a  state  [political  community].  Let  men  see,  let  them  know 
a  real  man  who  lives  according  to  nature.  If  they  can  not 
endure  him,  let  them  kill  him.  For  that  is  better  than  to 
live  thus  [as  men  do]. 

No  longer  talk  at  all  about  the  kind  of  man  that  a  good 
man  ought  to  be,  but  be  such. 

Constantly  contemplate  the  whole  of  time  and  the  whole 
of  substance,  and  consider  that  all  individual  things  as  to 
substance  are  a  grain  of  a  fig,  and  as  to  time,  the  turning  of 
a  gimlet. 

Look  at  every  thing  that  exists,  and  observe  that  it  is  al- 
ready in  dissolution  and  in  change,  and  as  it  were  putrefac- 
tion or  dispersion,  or  that  everything  is  so  constituted  by 
nature  as  to  die. 

Consider  what  men  are  when  they  are  eating,  sleeping, 
generating,  easing  themselves  and  so  forth.  Then  what 
kind  of  men  they  are  when  they  are  imperious*  and  arrogant, 
or  angry  and  scolding  from  their  elevated  place.  But  a 
short  time  ago  to  how  many  they  were  slaves  and  for  what 
things;  and  after  a  little  time  consider  in  what  a  condition 
they  will  be. 

That  is  for  the  good  of  each  thing,  which  the  universal 
nature  brings  to  each.  And  it  is  for  its  good  at  the  time 
when  nature  brings  it. 

"The  earth  loves  the  shower;"  and  "the  solemn  sether 
loves;"  and  the  universe  loves  to  make  whatever  is  about  to 


MEDITATIONS  lOl 

be.  I  say  then  to  the  universe,  that  I  love  as  thou  lovest.  And 
is  not  this  too  said,  that  "this  or  that  loves  [is  wont]  to  be 
produced?"® 

Either  thou  livest  here  and  hast  already  accustomed  thy- 
self to  it,  or  thou  art  going  away,  and  this  was  thy  own  will ; 
or  thou  art  dying  and  hast  discharged  thy  duty.  But  be- 
sides these  things  there  is  nothing.     Be  of  good  cheer,  then. 

Let  this  always  be  plain  to  thee,  that  this  piece  of  land 
is  like  any  other;  and  that  all  things  here  are  the  same  with 
things  on  the  top  of  a  mountain,  or  on  the  sea-shore,  or 
wherever  thou  choosest  to  be.  For  thou  wilt  find  just  what 
Plato  says,  Dwelling  within  the  walls  of  a  city  as  in  a  shep- 
herd's fold  on  a  mountain.  [The  three  last  words  are 
omitted  in  the  translation.]® 

What  is  my  ruling  faculty  now  to  me?  and  of  what  na- 
ture am  I  now  making  it?  and  for  what  purpose  am  I  now 
using  it?  is  it  void  of  understanding?  is  it  loosed  and  rent 
asunder  from  social  life?  is  it  melted  into  and  mixed  with 
the  poor  flesh  so  as  to  move  together  with  it  ? 

He  who  flies  from  his  master  is  a  runaway;  but  the  law 
is  master,  and  he  who  breaks  the  law  is  a  runaway.  And 
he  also  who  is  grieved  or  angry  or  afraid,*  is  dissatisfied 
because  something  has  been  or  is  or  shall  be  of  the  things 
which  are  appointed  by  him  who  rules  all  things,  and  he  is 
Law,  and  assigns  to  every  man  what  is  fit.  He  then  who 
fears  or  is  grieved  or  is  angry  is  a  runaway.^® 

A  man  deposits  seed  in  a  womb  and  goes  away,  and  then 
another  cause  takes  it,  and  labours  on  it  and  makes  a  child. 
What  a  thing  from  such  a  material !  Again,  the  child  passes 
food  down  through  the  throat,  and  then  another  cause  takes 
it  and  makes  perception  and  motion,  and  in  fine  life  and 
strength  and  other  things;  how  many  and  how  strange! 
Observe  then  the  things  which  are  produced  in  such  a  hidden 
way,  and  see  the  power  just  as  we  see  the  power  which  car- 
ries things  downwards  and  upwards,  not  with  the  eyes,  but 
still  no  less  plainly. 

Constantly  consider  how  all  things  such  as  they  now  are, 
in  time  past  also  were;  and  consider  that  they  will  be  the 
same  again.  And  place  before  thy  eyes  entire  dramas  and 
stages  of  the  same  form,  whatever  thou  hast  learned  from 


I02  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

thy  experience  or  from  older  history ;  for  example,  the  whole 
court  of  Hadrianus,  and  the  whole  court  of  Antoninus,  and 
the  whole  court  of  Philippus,  Alexander,  Croesus;  for  all 
those  were  such  dramas  as  we  see  now,  only  with  different 
actors. 

Imagine  every  man  who  is  grieved  at  anything  or  dis- 
contented to  be  like  a  pig  which  is  sacrificed  and  kicks  and 
screams. 

Like  this  pig  also  is  he  who  on  his  bed  in  silence  laments 
the  bonds  in  which  we  are  held.  And  consider  that  only  to 
the  rational  animal  is  it  given  to  follow  voluntarily  what 
happens ;  but  simply  to  follow  is  a  necessity  imposed  on  all. 

Severally  on  the  occasion  of  everything  that  thou  doest, 
pause  and  ask  thyself,  if  death  is  a  dreadful  thing  because  it 
deprives  thee  of  this. 

When  thou  art  offended  at  any  man's  fault,  forthwith 
turn  to  thyself  and  reflect  in  what  like  manner  thou  dost  err 
thyself ;  for  example,  in  thinking  that  money  is  a  good  thing, 
or  pleasure,  or  a  bit  of  reputation,  and  the  like.  For  by 
attending  to  this  thou  wilt  quickly  forget  thy  anger,  if  this 
consideration  also  is  added,  that  the  man  is  compelled:  for 
what  else  could  he  do?  or,  if  thou  art  able,  take  away  from 
him  the  compulsion. 

When  thou  hast  seen  Satyron^*  the  Socratic,*  think  of 
either  Eutyches  or  Hymen,  and  when  thou  hast  seen  Eu- 
phrates, think  of  Eutychion  or  Silvanus,  and  when  thou  hast 
seen  Alciphron  think  of  Tropaeophorus,  and  when  thou  hast 
seen  Xenophon  think  of  Crito^^  or  Severus,  and  when  thou 
hast  looked  on  thyself,  think  of  any  other  Caesar,  and  in  the 
case  of  every  one  do  in  like  manner.  Then  let  this  thought 
be  in  thy  mind.  Where  then  are  those  men?  Nowhere,  or 
nobody  knows  where.  For  thus  continuously  thou  wilt  look 
at  human  things  as  smoke  and  nothing  at  all;  especially  if 
thou  reflectest  at  the  same  time  that  what  has  once  changed 
will  never  exist  again  in  the  infinite  duration  of  time.  But 
thou,  in  what  a  brief  space  of  time  is  thy  existence?  And 
why  art  thou  not  content  to  pass  through  this  short  time  in 
an  orderly  way  ?  What  matter  and  opportunity  [  for  thy  ac- 
tivity] art  thou  avoiding?  For  what  else  are  all  these 
things,  except  exercises  for  the  reason,  when  it  has  viewed 


MEDITATIONS  IO3 

carefully  and  by  examination  into  their  nature  the  things 
which  happen  in  life?  Persevere  then  until  thou  shalt  have 
made  these  things  thy  own,  as  the  stomach  which  is  strength- 
ened makes  all  things  its  own,  as  the  blazing  fire  makes  flame 
and  brightness  out  of  everything  that  is  thrown  into  it. 

Let  it  not  be  in  any  man's  power  to  say  truly  of  thee  that 
thou  art  not  simple  or  that  thou  art  not  good;  but  let  him 
be  a  liar  whoever  shall  think  anything  of  this  kind  about 
thee;  and  thi§  is  altogether  in  thy  power.  For  who  is  he 
that  shall  hinder  thee  from  being  good  and  simple?  Do 
thou  only  determine  to  live  no  longer,  unless  thou  shalt  be 
such.  For  neither  does  reason  allow  [thee  to  live],  if  thou 
art  not  such. 

What  is  that  which  as  to  this  material  [our  life]  can  be 
done  or  said  in  the  way  most  conformable  to  reason.  For 
whatever  this  may  be,  it  is  in  thy  power  to  do  it  or  to  say 
it,  and  do  not  make  excuses  that  thou  art  hindered.  Thou 
wilt  not  cease  to  lament  till  thy  mind  is  in  such  a  condition 
that,  what  luxury  is  to  those  who  enjoy  pleasure,  such  shall 
be  to  thee,  in  the  matter  which  is  subjected  and  presented 
to  thee,  the  doing  of  the  things  which  are  conformable  to 
man's  constitution;  for  a  man  ought  to  consider  as  an  en- 
joyment everything  which  it  is  in  his  power  to  do  according 
to  his  own  nature.  And  it  is  in  his  power  everywhere. 
Now,  it  is  not  given  to  a  cylinder  to  move  everywhere  by 
its  own  motion,  nor  yet  to  water  nor  to  fire,  nor  to  anything 
else  which  is  governed  by  nature  or  an  irrational  soul, 
for  the  things  which  check  them  and  stand  in  the  way  are 
many.  But  intelligence  and  reason  are  able  to  go  through 
everything  that  opposes  them,  and  in  such  manner  as  they 
are  formed  by  nature  and  as  they  choose.  Place  before  thy 
eyes  this  facility  with  which  the  reason  will  be  carried 
through  all  things,  as  fire  upwards,  as  a  stone  downwards,  as 
a  cylinder  down  an  inclined  surface,  and  seek  for  nothing 
further.  For  all  other  obstacles  either  affect  the  body  only 
whichisa  dead  thing;  or,  except  through  opinion  andtheyield- 
ing  of  the  reason  itself,  they  do  not  crush  nor  do  any  harm  of 
any  kind ;  for  if  they  did,  he  who  felt  it  would  immediately 
become  bad.  Now,  in  the  case  of  all  things  which  have 
a  certain  constitution,  whatever  harm  may  happen  to  any 


I04  '  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

of  them,  that  which  is  so  affected  becomes  consequently 
worse;  but  in  the  like  case,  a  man  becomes  both  better,  if  one 
may  say  so,  and  more  worthy  of  praise  by  making  right 
use  of  these  accidents.  And  finally  remember  that  nothing 
harms  him  who  is  really  a  citizen,  which  does  not  harm  the 
state ;  nor  yet  does  anything  harm  the  state,  which  does  not 
harm  law  [order]  ;  and  of  these  things  which  are  called  mis- 
fortunes not  one  harms  law.  What  then  does  not  harm  law 
does  not  harm  either  state  or  citizen. 

To  him  who  is  penetrated  by  true  principles  even  the  brief- 
est precept  is  sufficient,  and  any  common  precept,  to  remind 
him  that  he  should  be  free  from  grief  and  fear.  For  ex- 
ample— 

"Leaves,  some  the  wind  scatters  on  the  ground — 
So  is  the  race  of  men."^* 

Leaves,  also,  are  thy  children ;  and  leaves,  too,  are  they  who 
cry  out  as  if  they  were  worthy  of  credit  and  bestow  their 
praise,  or  on  the  contrary  curse,  or  secretly  blame  and  sneer ; 
and  leaves,  in  like  manner,  are  those  who  shall  receive  and 
transmit  a  man's  fame  to  after  times.  For  all  such  things 
as  these  "are  produced  in  the  season  of  spring,"  as  the  poet 
says;  then  the  wind  casts  them  down;  then  the  forest  pro- 
duces other  leaves  in  their  places.  But  a  brief  existence  is 
common  to  all  things,  and  yet  thou  avoidest  and  pursuest  all 
things  as  if  they  would  be  eternal.  A  little  time,  and  thou 
shalt  close  thy  eyes;  and  him  who  has  attended  thee  to  thy 
grave  another  soon  will  lament. 

The  healthy  eye  ought  to  see  all  visible  things  and  not  to 
say,  I  wish  for  green  things;  for  this  is  the  condition  of  a 
diseased  eye.  And  the  healthy  hearing  and  smelling  ought 
to  be  ready  to  perceive  all  that  can  be  heard  and  smelled. 
And  the  healthy  stomach  ought  to  be  with  respect  to  all  food 
just  as  the  mill  with  respect  to  all  things  which  it  is  formed 
to  grind.  And  accordingly  the  healthy  understanding 
ought  to  be  prepared  for  everything  which  happens ;  but  that 
which  says.  Let  my  dear  children  live,  and  let  all  men  praise 
whatever  I  may  do,  is  an  eye  which  seeks  for  green  things, 
or  teeth  which  seek  for  soft  things. 

There  is  no  man  so  fortunate  that  there  shall  not  be  by 
him  when  he  is  dying  some  who  are  pleased  with  what  is 


MEDITATIONS  Io5 

going  to  happen.^*  Suppose  that  he  was  a  good  and  wise 
man,  will  there  not  be  at  last  some  one  to  say  to  himself,  Let 
us  at  last  breathe  freely  being  relieved  from  this  schoolmas- 
ter? It  is  true  that  he  was  harsh  to  none  of  us,  but  I  per- 
ceived that  he  tacitly  condemns  us. — This  is  what  is  said  of 
a  good  man.  But  in  our  own  case  how  many  other  things 
are  there  for  which  there  are  many  who  wish  to  get  rid  of 
us.  Thou  wilt  consider  this  then  when  thou  art  dying,  and 
thou  wilt  depart  more  contentedly  by  reflecting  thus :  I  am 
going  away  from  such  a  life,  in  which  even  my  associates  in 
behalf  of  whom  I  have  striven  so  much,  prayed,  and  cared, 
themselves  wish  me  to  depart,  hoping  perchance  to  get  some 
little  advantage  by  it.  Why  then  should  a  man  cling  to  a 
longer  stay  here  ?  Do  not  however  for  this  reason  go  away 
less  kindly  disposed  to  them,  but  preserving  thy  own  char- 
acter, and  friendly  and  benevolent  and  mild,  and  on  the  other 
hand  not  as  if  thou  wast  torn  away;  but  as  when  a  man  dies 
a  quiet  death,  the  poor  soul  is  easily  separated  from  the 
body,  such  also  ought  thy  departure  from  men  to  be,  for 
nature  united  thee  to  them  and  associated  thee.  But  does 
she  now  dissolve  the  union  ?  Well,  I  am  separated  as  from 
kinsmen,  not  however  dragged  resisting,  but  without  com- 
pulsion ;  for  this  too  is  one  of  the  things  according  to  nature. 

Accustom  thyself  as  much  as  possible,  on  the  occasion  of 
anything  being  done  by  any  person,  to  inquire  with  thyself, 
For  what  object  is  this  man  doing  this?  but  begin  with  thy- 
self, and  examine  thyself  first. 

Remember  that  this  which  pulls  the  strings  is  the  thing 
which  is  hidden  within :  this  is  the  power  of  persuasion,  this 
is  life,  this,  if  one  may  so  say,  is  man.  In  contemplating 
thyself  never  include  the  vessel  which  surrounds  thee  and 
these  instruments  which  are  attached  about  it.  For  they  are 
like  to  an  axe,  differing  only  in  this  that  they  grow  to  the 
body.  For  indeed  there  is  no  more  use  in  these  parts  without 
the  cause  which  moves  and  checks  them  than  in  the  weaver's 
shuttle,  and  the  writer's  pen,  and  the  driver's  whip. 

NOTES 

*  That  is,  God,  as  he  is  defined  by  Zeno.  But  the  confusion  between 
gods  and  God  is  strange. 

*  The  end  of  this  section  is  perhaps  corrupt.  The  meaning  is  very  ob- 


I06  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

scure.  I  have  given  that  meaning  which  appears  to  be  consistent  with 
the  whole  argument.  The  emperor  here  maintains  that  the  essential  part 
of  man  is  unchangeable,  and  that  the  other  parts,  if  they  change  or 
perish,  do  not  affect  that  which  really  constitutes  the  man. 

*  See  Seneca,  Epp.  70,  on  these  exhibitions  which  amused  the  people 
of  those  days.  These  fighters  were  the  Bestiarii,  some  of  whom  may 
have  been  criminals,  but  even  if  they  were,  the  exhibition  was  equally 
characteristic  of  the  depraved  habits  of  the  spectators. 

*  The  islands  of  the  Happy  or  the  Fortunatae  Insulae  are  spoken  of 
by  the  Greek  and  Roman  writers.  They  were  the  abode  of  Heroes,  like 
Achilles  and  Diomedes,  as  we  see  in  the  Scolion  of  Harmodius  and  Aris- 
togilon.  Sertorius  heard  of  the  islands  at  Cadiz  from  some  sailors  who 
had  been  there,  and  he  had  a  wish  to  go  and  live  in  them  and  rest  from 
his  troubles.  (Plutarch,  Sertorius,  c.  8.)  In  the  Odyssey,  Proteus  told 
Menelaus  that  he  should  not  die  in  Argos,  but  be  removed  to  a  place  at 
the  boundary  of  the  earth  where  Rhadamanthus  dwelt:   (Odyssey,  iv, 

56s.) 

"For  there  in  sooth  man's  life  is  easiest : 
Nor  snow  nor  raging  storm  nor  rain  is  there, 
But  ever  gently  breathing  gales  of  Zephyr 
Oceanus  sends  up  to  gladden  man." 

It  is  certain  that  the  writer  of  the  Odyssey  only  follows  some  old 
legend  without  having  any  knowledge  of  any  place  which  corresponds 
to  his  description.  The  two  islands  which  Sertorius  heard  of  may  be 
Madeira  and  the  adjacent^ island.     Compare  Pindar,  Ol.  11,  129. 

*  Corais  conjectured  fxtdo^  "hatred"  in  place  of  Mimi,  Roman  plays 
in  which  action  and  gesticulation  were  all  or  nearly  all. 

*  Marcus  means  to  say  that  conquerors  are  robbers.  He  himself 
warred  against  Sarmatians,  and  was  a  robber,  as  he  says,  like  the  rest. 

'  By  the  law,  he  means  the  divine  law,  obedience  to  the  will  of  God. 

*  These  words  are  from  Euripides.  They  are  cited  by  Aristotle,  Ethic. 
Nicom.  VIII,  I.  Athejiaeus  (xiii,  296.)  and  Stobaeus  quotes  seven  complete 
lines  beginning  IpS.  /uiv  oM/3pov  yaia.  There  is  a  similar  fragment 
of  .Aeschylus,  Danaides,  also  quoted  by  Althenaeus. 

It  was  the  fashion  of  the  Stoics  to  work  on  the  meanings  of  words. 
So  Antoninus  here  takes  the  verb  (piXti,  "loves,"  which  has  also  the 
sense  of  "is  wont,"  "uses,"  and  the  like.  He  finds  in  the  common  lan- 
guage of  mankind  a  philosophical  truth,  and  most  great  truths  are  ex- 
pressed in  the  common  language  of  life ;  some  understand  them,  but 
most  people  utter  them  without  knowing  how  much  they  mean. 

'  Plato  Theaet.  174  D.  E.  But  compare  the  original  with  the  use  that 
Antoninus  has  made  of  it. 

"Antoninus  is  here  playing  on  the  etymology  of  v6)ioii,  law,  assign- 
ment, that  which  assigns  (ve/iei)  to  every  man  his  portion. 

"  Nothing  is  known  of  Satyron  or  Satyrion ;  nor,  I  believe,  of  Euty- 
ches  or  Hymen.  Euphrates  is  honourably  mentioned  by  Epictetus.  Pliny 
speaks  very  highly  of  him.  He  obtained  the  permission  of  the  Emperor 
Hadrian  to  drink  poison,  because  he  was  old  and  in  bad  health. 

"  Crito  is  the  friend  of  Socrates ;  and  he  was,  it  appears,  also  a  friend 
of  Xenophon.  When  the  emperor  says  "seen"  {iS<hv)  he  does  not  mean 
with  the  eyes. 

"  Homer,  II.  vi,  146. 

"  He  says  xaxov,  but  as  he  affirms  in  other  places  that  death  is  no 
evil,  he  must  mean  what  others  may  call  an  evil,  and  he  means  only 
"what  is  going  to  happen." 


BOOK  XI 

THESE  are  the  properties  of  the  rational  soul :  it  sees 
itself,  analyses  itself,  and  makes  itself  such  as  it 
chooses;  the  fruit  which  it  bears  itself  enjoys — for 
the  fruits  of  plants  and  that  in  animals  which  corre- 
sponds to  fruits  others  enjoy — it  obtains  its  own  end,  where- 
ever  the  limit  of  life  may  be  fixed.  Not  as  in  a  dance  and 
in  a  play  and  in  such  Hke  things,  where  the  whole  action 
is  incomplete,  if  anything  cuts  it  short ;  but  in  every  part  and 
wherever  it  may  be  stopped,  it  makes  what  has  been  set  be- 
fore it  full  and  complete,  so  that  it  can  say,  I  have  what  is  my 
own.  And  further  it  traverses  the  whole  universe,  and  the 
surrounding  vacuum,  and  surveys  its  form,  and  it  extends 
itself  into  the  infinity  of  time,  and  embraces  and  compre- 
hends the  periodical  renovation  of  all  things,  and  it  compre- 
hends that  those  who  come  after  us  will  see  nothing  new,  nor 
have  those  before  us  seen  anything  more,  but  in  a  manner 
he  who  is  forty  years  old,  if  he  has  any  understanding  at  all, 
has  seen  by  virtue  of  the  uniformity  that  prevails  all  things 
which  have  been  and  all  that  will  be.  This  too  is  a  prop- 
erty of  the  rational  soul,  love  of  one's  neighbour,  and  truth 
and  modesty,  and  to  value  nothing  more  than  itself,  which  is 
also  the  property  of  Law.^  Thus  then  right  reason  differs 
not  at  all  from  the  reason  of  justice. 

Thou  wilt  set  little  value  on  pleasing  song  and  dancing 
and  the  pancratium,  if  thou  wilt  distribute  the  melody  of 
the  voice  into  its  several  sounds,  and  ask  thyself  as  to  each,  if 
thou  art  mastered  by  this;  for  thou  wilt  be  prevented  by 
shame  from  confessing  it :  and  in  the  matter  of  dancing,  if 
at  each  movement  and  attitude  thou  wilt  do  the  same ;  and 
the  like  also  in  the  matter  of  the  pancratium.  In  all  things, 
then,  except  virtue  and  the  acts  of  virtue,  remember  to  apply 

107 


I08  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

thyself  to  their  several  parts,  and  by  this  division  to  come  to 
value  them  little :  and  apply  this  rule  also  to  thy  whole  life. 

What  a  soul  that  is  which  is  ready,  if  at  any  moment  it 
must  be  separated  from  the  body,  and  ready  either  to  be 
extinguished  or  dispersed  or  continue  to  exist;  but  so  that 
this  readiness  comes  from  a  man's  own  judgment,  not  from 
mere  obstinacy,  as  with  the  Christians,^  but  considerately 
and  with  dignity  and  in  a  way  to  persuade  another,  without 
tragic  show. 

Have  I  done  something  for  the  general  interest?  Well 
then  I  have  had  my  reward.  Let  this  always  be  present  to 
thy  mind,  and  never  stop  [doing  such  good]. 

What  is  thy  art?  to  be  good.  And  how  is  this  accom- 
plished well  except  by  general  principles,  some  about  the 
nature  of  the  universe,  and  others  about  the  proper  constitu- 
tion of  man? 

At  first  tragedies  were  brought  on  the  stage  as  means  of 
reminding  men  of  the  things  which  happen  to  them,  and  that 
it  is  according  to  nature  for  things  to  happen  so,  and  that,  if 
you  are  delighted  with  what  is  shown  on  the  stage,  you 
should  not  be  troubled  with  that  which  takes  place  on  the 
larger  stage.  For  you  see  that  these  things  must  be  accom- 
plished thus,  and  that  even  they  bear  them  who  cry  out^  "O 
Cithseron."  And,  indeed,  some  things  are  said  well  by  the 
dramatic  writers,  of  which  kind  is  the  following  especially : — 

"Me  and  my  children  if  the  gods  neglect, 
This  has  its  reason  too." 

And  again — 

"We  must  not  chafe  and  fret  at  that  which  happens." 
And— 

"Life's  harvest  reap  like  the  wheat's  fruitful  ear." 

And  other  things  of  the  same  kind. 

After  tragedy  the  old  comedy  was  introduced,  which  had  a 
magisterial  freedom  of  speech,  and  by  its  very  plainness  of 
speaking  was  useful  in  reminding  men  to  beware  of  inso- 
lence ;  and  for  this  purpose  too  Diogenes  used  to  take  from 
these  writers. 

But  as  to  the  middle  comedy  which  came  next,  observe 


MEDITATIONS  IO9 

what  it  was,  and  again,  for  what  object  the  new  comedy  was 
introduced,  which  gradually  sunk  down  into  a  mere  mimic 
artifice.  That  some  good  things  are  said  even  by  these 
writers,  everybody  knows :  but  the  whole  plan  of  such  poetry 
and  dramaturgy,  to  what  end  does  it  look ! 

How  plain  does  it  appear  that  there  is  not  another  condi- 
tion of  life  so  well  suited  for  philosophizing  as  this  in  which 
thou  now  happenest  to  be. 

A  branch  cut  off  from  the  adjacent  branch  must  of  neces- 
sity be  cut  off  from  the  whole  tree  also.  So  too  a  man  when 
he  is  separated  from  another  man  has  fallen  off  from  the 
whole  social  community.  Now  as  to  a  branch,  another  cuts 
it  off,  but  a  man  by  his  own  act  separates  himself  from  his 
neighbour  when  he  hates  him  and  turns  away  from  him,  and 
he  does  not  know  that  he  has  at  the  same  time  cut  himself 
off  from  the  whole  social  system.  Yet  he  has  this  privilege 
certainly  from  Zeus  who  framed  society,  for  it  is  in  our  power 
to  grow  again  to  that  which  is  near  to  us,  and  again  to  be- 
come a  part  which  helps  to  make  up  the  whole.  However, 
if  it  often  happens,  this  kind  of  separation,  it  makes  it  diffi- 
cult for  that  which  detaches  itself  to  be  brought  to  unity  and 
to  be  restored  to  its  former  condition.  Finally,  the  branch, 
which  from  the  first  grew  together  with  the  tree,  and  has 
continued  to  have  one  life  with  it,  is  not  like  that  which 
after  being  cut  off  is  then  ingrafted,  for  this  is  something 
like  what  the  gardeners  mean  when  they  say  that  it  grows 
with  the  rest  of  the  tree,  but*  that  it  has  not  the  same  mind 
with  it. 

As  those  who  try  to  stand  in  thy  way  when  thou  art 
proceeding  according  to  right  reason,  will  not  be  able  to  turn 
thee  aside  from  thy  proper  action,  so  neither  let  them  drive 
thee  from  thy  benevolent  feelings  towards  them,  but  be  on 
thy  guard  equally  in  both  matters,  not  only  in  the  matter  of 
steady  judgment  and  action,  but  also  in  the  matter  of  gentle- 
ness towards  those  who  try  to  hinder  or  otherwise  trouble 
thee.  For  this  also  is  a  weakness,  to  be  vexed  at  them,  as 
well  as  to  be  diverted  from  thy  course  of  action  and  to  give 
way  through  fear ;  for  both  are  equally  deserters  from  their 
posts,  the  man  who  does  it  through  fear,  and  the  man  who 


I  lO  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

is  alienated  from  him  who  is  by  nature  a  kinsman  and  a 
friend. 

There  is  no  nature  which  is  inferior  to  art,  for  the  arts 
imitate  the  natures  of  things.  But  if  this  is  so,  that  nature 
which  is  the  most  perfect  and  the  most  comprehensive  of  all 
natures,  can  not  fall  short  of  the  skill  of  art.  Now  all  arts 
do  the  inferior  things  for  the  sake  of  the  superior ;  therefore 
the  universal  nature  does  so  too.  And,  indeed,  hence  is  the 
origin  of  justice,  and  in  justice  the  other  virtues  have  their 
foundation :  for  justice  will  not  be  observed,  if  we  either  care 
for  middle  things  [things  indifferent],  or  are  easily  deceived 
and  careless  and  changeable. 

If  the  things  do  not  come  to  thee,  the  pursuits  and  avoid- 
ances of  which  disturb  thee,  still  in  a  manner  thou  goest  to 
them.  Let  then  thy  judgment  about  them  be  at  rest,  and 
they  will  remain  quiet,  and  thou  wilt  not  be  seen  either  pursu- 
ing or  avoiding. 

The  spherical  form  of  the  soul  maintains  its  figure,  when 
it  is  neither  extended  towards  any  object,  nor  contracted 
inwards,  nor  dispersed  nor  sinks  down,  but  is  illuminated  by 
light,  by  which  it  sees  the  truth,  the  truth  of  all  things  and 
the  truth  that  is  in  itself. 

Suppose  any  man  shall  despise  me.  Let  him  look  to  that 
himself.  But  I  will  look  to  this,  that  I  be  not  discovered 
doing  or  saying  anything  deserving  of  contempt.  Shall  any 
man  hate  me  ?  Let  him  look  to  it.  But  I  will  be  mild  and 
benevolent  towards  every  man,  and  ready  to  show  even  him 
his  mistake,  not  reproachfully,  nor  yet  as  making  a  display 
of  my  endurance,  but  nobly  and  honestly,  like  the  great  Pho- 
cion,  unless  indeed  he  only  assumed  it.  For  the  interior 
[parts]  ought  to  be  such,  and  a  man  ought  to  be  seen  by  the 
gods  neither  dissatisfied  with  anything  nor  complaining. 
For  what  evil  is  it  to  thee,  if  thou  art  now  doing  what  is 
agreeable  to  thy  own  nature,  and  art  satisfied  with  that  which 
at  this  moment  is  suitable  to  the  nature  of  the  universe,  since 
thou  art  a  human  being  placed  at  thy  post  in  order  that  what 
is  for  the  common  advantage  may  be  done  in  some  way  ? 

Men  despise  one  another  and  flatter  one  another ;  and  men 
wish  to  raise  themselves  above  one  another,  and  crouch  be- 
fore one  another. 


MEDITATIONS  I  1 1 

How  unsound  and  insincere  is  he  who  says,  I  have  deter- 
mined to  deal  with  thee  in  a  fair  way. — What  art  thou  doing, 
man  ?  There  is  no  occasion  to  give  this  notice.  It  will  soon 
show  itself  by  acts.  The  voice  ought  to  be  plainly  written 
on  the  forehead.  Such  as  a  man's  character  is,*  he  imme- 
diately shows  it  in  his  eyes,  just  as  he  who  is  beloved  forth- 
with reads  everything  in  the  eyes  of  lovers.  The  man  who 
is  honest  and  good  ought  to  be  exactly  like  a  man  who  smells 
strong,  so  that  the  bystander  as  soon  as  he  comes  near  him 
must  smell  whether  he  choose  or  not.  But  the  affectation  of 
simplicity  is  like  a  crooked  stick.*  Nothing  is  more  dis- 
graceful than  a  wolfish  friendship  [false  friendship].  Avoid 
this  most  of  all.  The  good  and  simple  and  benevolent 
show  all  these  things  in  the  eyes,  and  there  is  no  mis- 
taking. 

As  to  living  in  the  best  way,  this  power  is  in  the  soul, 
if  it  be  indifferent  to  things  which  are  indifferent.  And  it 
will  be  indifferent,  if  it  looks  on  each  of  these  things  sepa- 
rately and  all  together,  and  if  it  remembers  that  not  one  of 
them  produces  in  us  an  opinion  about  itself,  nor  comes  to  us ; 
but  these  things  remain  immovable,  and  it  is  we  ourselves 
who  produce  the  judgments  about  them,  and,  as  we  may  say, 
write  them  in  ourselves,  it  being  in  our  power  not  to  write 
them, and  it  being  in  our  power,  if  perchance  these  judgments 
have  imperceptibly  got  admission  to  our  minds,  to  wipe  them 
out ;  and  if  we  remember  also  that  such  attention  will  only  be 
for  a  short  time,  and  then  life  will  be  at  an  end.  Besides, 
what  trouble  is  there  at  all  in  doing  this?  For  if  these 
things  are  according  to  nature,  rejoice  in  them,  and  they  will 
be  easy  to  thee :  but  if  contrary  to  nature,  seek  what  is  con- 
formable to  thy  own  nature,  and  strive  towards  this,  even 
if  it  bring  no  reputation;  for  every  man  is  allowed  to  seek 
his  own  good. 

Consider  whence  each  thing  is  come,  and  of  what  it  con- 
sists,* and  into  what  it  changes,  and  what  kind  of  a  thing 
it  will  be  when  it  has  changed,  and  that  it  will  sustain  no 
harm. 

[If  any  have  offended  against  thee,  consider  first]  :  What 
is  my  relation  to  men,  and  that  we  are  made  for  one  another ; 
and  in  another  respect,  I  was  made  to  be  set  over  them,  as  a 


112  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

ram  over  the  flock  or  a  bull  over  the  herd.  But  examine  the 
matter  from  first  principles,  from  this :  If  all  things  are  not 
mere  atoms,  it  is  nature  which  orders  all  things:  if  this  is 
so,  the  inferior  things  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  superior,  and 
these  for  the  sake  of  one  another. 

Second,  consider  what  kind  of  men  they  are  at  table,  in 
bed,  and  so  forth :  and  particularly,  under  what  compulsions 
in  respect  of  opinions  they  are ;  and  as  to  their  acts,  consider 
with  what  pride  they  do  what  they  do. 

Third,  that  if  men  do  rightly  what  they  do,  we  ought  not 
to  be  displeased;  but  if  they  do  not  right,  it  is  plain  that 
they  do  so  involuntarily  and  in  ignorance.  For  as  every 
soul  is  unwillingly  deprived  of  the  truth,  so  also  is  it  unwill- 
ingly deprived  of  the  power  of  behaving  to  each  man  accord- 
ing to  his  deserts.  Accordingly  men  are  pained  when  they 
are  called  unjust,  ungrateful,  and  greedy,  and  in  a  word 
wrong-doers  to  their  neighbours. 

Fourth,  consider  that  thou  also  doest  many  things  wrong, 
and  that  thou  art  a  man  like  others;  and  even  if  thou  dost 
abstain  from  certain  faults,  still  thou  hast  the  disposition  to 
commit  them,  though  either  through  cowardice,  or  concern 
about  reputation  or  some  such  mean  motive,  thou  dost  ab- 
stain from  such  faults. 

Fifth,  consider  that  thou  dost  not  even  understand 
whether  men  are  doing  wrong,  or  not,  for  many  things  are 
done  with  a  certain  reference  to  circumstances.  And  in  short, 
a  man  must  learn  a  great  deal  to  enable  him  to  pass  a  correct 
judgment  on  another  man's  acts. 

Sixth,  consider  when  thou  art  much  vexed  or  grieved,  that 
man's  life  is  only  a  moment,  and  after  a  short  time  we  are 
all  laid  out  dead. 

Seventh,  that  it  is  not  men's  acts  which  disturb  us,  for 
those  acts  have  their  foundation  in  men's  ruling  principles, 
but  it  is  our  own  opinions  which  disturb  us.  Take  away 
these  opinions  then,  and  resolve  to  dismiss  thy  judgment 
about  an  act  as  if  it  were  something  grievous,  and  thy  anger 
is  gone.  How  then  shall  I  take  away  these  opinions?  By 
reflecting  that  no  wrongful  act  of  another  brings  shame  on 
thee :  for  unless  that  which  is  shameful  is  alone  bad,  thou  also 


MEDITATIONS  1 1 3 

must  of  necessity  do  many  things  wrong,  and  become  a 
robber  and  everything  else. 

Eighth,  consider  how  much  more  pain  is  brought  on  us  by 
the  anger  and  vexation  caused  by  such  acts  than  by  the  acts 
themselves,  at  which  we  are  angry  and  vexed. 

Ninth,  consider  that  a  good  disposition  is  invincible,  if  it 
be  genuine,  and  not  an  affected  smile  and  acting  a  part.  For 
what  will  the  most  violent  man  do  to  thee,  if  thou  continuest 
to  be  of  a  kind  disposition  towards  him,  and  if,  as  oppor- 
tunity offers,  thou  gently  admonishest  him  and  calmly  cor- 
rectest  his  errors  at  the  very  time  when  he  is  trying  to  do  thee 
harm,  saying,  ''Not  so,  my  child :  we  are  constituted  by  na- 
ture for  something  else :  I  shall  certainly  not  be  injured,  but 
thou  art  injuring  thyself,  my  child." — And  show  him  with 
gentle  tact  and  by  general  principles  that  this  is  so,  and  that 
even  bees  do  not  do  as  he  does,  nor  any  animals  which  are 
formed  by  nature  to  be  gregarious.  And  thou  must  do  this 
neither  with  any  double  meaning  nor  in  the  way  of  reproach, 
but  affectionately  and  without  any  rancour  in  thy  soul ;  and 
not  as  if  thou  wert  lecturing  him,  nor  yet  that  any  bystander 
may  admire,  but  either  when  he  is  alone,  and  if  others  are 
present'^ 

Remember  these  nine  rules,  as  if  thou  hadst  received  them 
as  a  gift  from  the  Muses,  and  begin  at  last  to  be  a  man  while 
thou  livest.  But  thou  must  equally  avoid  flattering  men  and 
being  vexed  at  them,  for  both  are  unsocial  and  lead  to  harm. 
And  let  this  truth  be  present  to  thee  in  the  excitement  of 
anger,  that  to  be  moved  by  passion  is  not  manly,  but  that 
mildness  and  gentleness,  as  they  are  more  agreeable  to  human 
nature,  so  also  are  they  more  manly;  and  he  who  possesses 
these  qualities  possesses  strength,  nerves,  and  courage,  and 
not  the  man  who  is  subject  to  fits  of  passion  and  discontent. 
For  in  the  same  degree  in  which  a  man's  mind  is  nearer  to 
freedom  from  all  passion,  in  the  same  degree  also  is  it 
nearer  to  strength :  and  as  the  sense  of  pain  is  a  characteris- 
tic of  weakness,  so  also  is  anger.  For  he  who  yields  to  pain 
and  he  who  yields  to  anger,  both  are  wounded  and  both 
submit. 

But  if  thou  wilt,  receive  also  a  tenth  present  from  the 
leader  of  the  [Muses,  Apollo],  and  it  is  this — that  to  expect 


114  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

bad  men  not  to  do  wrong  is  madness,  for  he  who  expects  this 
desires  an  impossibihty.  But  to  allow  men  to  behave  so  to 
others,  and  to  expect  them  not  to  do  thee  any  wrong,  is  irra- 
tional and  tyrannical. 

There  are  four  principal  aberrations  of  the  superior  faculty 
against  which  thou  shouldst  be  constantly  on  thy  guard,  and 
when  thou  hast  detected  them,  thou  shouldst  wipe  them  out 
and  say  on  each  occasion  thus :  this  thought  is  not  necessary : 
this  tends  to  destroy  social  union :  this  which  thou  art  going 
to  say  comes  not  from  the  real  thoughts;  for  thou  shouldst 
consider  it  among  the  most  absurd  of  things  for  a  man  not  to 
speak  from  his  real  thoughts.  But  the  fourth  is  when  thou 
shalt  reproach  thyself  for  anything,  for  this  is  an  evidence 
of  the  diviner  part  within  thee  being  overpowered  and  yield- 
ing to  the  less  honourable  and  to  the  perishable  part,  the 
body,  and  to  its  gross  pleasures. 

Thy  aerial  part  and  all  the  fiery  parts  which  are  mingled 
in  thee,  though  by  nature  they  have  an  upward  tendency,  still 
in  obedience  to  the  disposition  of  the  universe  they  are  over- 
powered here  in  the  compound  mass  [the  body] .  And  also 
the  whole  of  the  earthly  part  in  thee  and  the  watery,  though 
their  tendency  is  downward,  still  are  raised  up  and  occupy  a 
position  which  is  not  their  natural  one.  In  this  manner  then 
the  elemental  parts  obey  the  universal,  for  when  they  have 
been  fixed  in  any  place  perforce  they  remain  there  until  again 
the  universal  shall  sound  the  signal  for  dissolution.  Is  it 
not  then  strange  that  thy  intelligent  part  only  should  be  dis- 
obedient and  discontented  with  its  own  place?  And  yet  no 
force  is  imposed  on  it,  but  only  those  things  which  are  con- 
formable to  its  nature :  still  it  does  not  submit,  but  is  carried 
in  the  opposite  direction.  For  the  movement  towards  injus- 
tice and  intemperance  and  to  anger  and  grief  and  fear  is 
nothing  else  than  the  act  of  one  who  deviates  from  nature. 
And  also  when  the  ruling  faculty  is  discontented  with  any- 
thing that  happens,  then  too  it  deserts  its  post :  for  it  is  con- 
stituted for  piety  and  reverence  towards  the  gods  no  less  than 
for  justice.  For  these  qualities  also  are  comprehended  under 
the  generic  term  of  contentment  with  the  constitution  of 
things,  and  indeed  they  are  prior*  to  acts  of  justice. 

He  who  has  not  one  and  always  the  same  object  in  life, 


MEDITATIONS  1 1 5 

can  not  be  one  and  the  same  all  through  his  life.  But  what 
I  have  said  is  not  enough,  unless  this  also  is  added,  what  this 
object  ought  to  be.  For  as  there  is  not  the  same  opinion 
about  all  the  things  which  in  some  way  or  other  are  consid- 
ered by  the  majority  to  be  good,  but  only  about  some  certain 
things,  that  is,  things  which  concern  the  common  interest ;  so 
also  ought  we  to  propose  to  ourselves  an  object  which  shall 
be  of  a  common  kind  [social]  and  political.  For  he  who 
directs  all  his  own  efforts  to  this  object,  will  make  all  his  acts 
alike,  and  thus  will  always  be  the  same. 

Think  of  the  country  mouse  and  of  the  town  mouse,  and  of 
the  alarm  and  trepidation  of  the  town  mouse.'^ 

Socrates  used  to  call  the  opinions  of  the  many  by  the  name 
of  Lamise,  bugbears  to  frighten  children. 

The  Lacedaemonians  at  their  public  spectacles  used  to  set 
seats  in  the  shade  for  strangers,  but  themselves  sat  down 
anywhere. 

Socrates  excused  himself  to  Perdiccas®  for  not  going 
to  him,  saying.  It  is  because  I  would  not  perish  by  the  worst 
of  all  ends,  that  is,  I  would  not  receive  a  favour  and  then  be 
unable  to  return  it. 

In  the  writing  of  the  [Ephesians]  there  was  this  precept, 
constantly  to  think  of  some  one  of  the  men  of  former  times 
who  practised  virtue. 

The  Pythagoreans  bid  us  in  the  morning  look  to  the 
heavens  that  we  may  be  reminded  of  those  bodies  which  con- 
tinually do  the  same  things  and  in  the  same  manner  perform 
their  work,  and  also  be  reminded  of  their  purity  and  nudity. 
For  there  is  no  veil  over  a  star. 

Consider  what  a  man  Socrates  was  when  he  dressed  him- 
self in  a  skin,  after  Xanthippe  had  taken  his  cloak  and  gone 
out,  and  what  Socrates  said  to  his  friends  who  were  ashamed 
of  him  and  drew  back  from  him  when  they  saw  him  dressed 
thus. 

Neither  in  writing  nor  in  reading  wilt  thou  be  able  to  lay 
down  rules  for  others  before  thou  shalt  have  first  learned  to 
obey  rules  thyself.     Much  more  is  this  so  in  life. 

A  slave  thou  art :  free  speech  is  not  for  thee. 

And  my  heart  laughed  within.* 

And  virtue  they  will  curse  speaking  harsh  words.** 


Il6  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

To  look  for  the  fig  in  winter  is  a  madman's  act :  such  is  he 
who  looks  for  his  child  when  it  is  no  longer  allowed. ^^ 

When  a  man  kisses  his  child,  said  Epictetus,  he  should 
whisper  to  himself,  "To-morrow  perchance  thou  wilt  die" — 
But  those  are  words  of  bad  omen — "No  word  is  a  word  of 
bad  omen,"  said  Epictetus,  "which  expresses  any  work  of 
nature ;  or  if  it  is  so,  it  is  also  a  word  of  bad  omen  to  speak 
of  the  ears  of  corn  being  reaped." 

The  unripe  grape,  the  ripe  bunch,  the  dried  grape  all  are 
changes,  not  into  nothing,  but  into  something  which  exists 
not  yet.^^ 

No  man  can  rob  us  of  our  free  will.^^ 

Epictetus  also  said,  a  man  must  discover  an  art  [or  rules] 
with  respect  to  giving  his  assent ;  and  in  respect  to  his  move- 
ments he  must  be  careful  that  they  be  made  with  regard  to 
circumstances,  that  they  be  consistent  with  social  interests, 
that  they  have  regard  to  the  value  of  the  object;  and  as  to 
sensual  desire,  he  should  altogether  keep  away  from  it ;  and 
as  to  avoidance  [aversion]  he  should  not  show  it  with  re- 
spect to  any  of  the  things  which  are  not  in  our  power. 

The  dispute  then,  he  said,  is  not  about  any  common  mat- 
ter, but  about  being  mad  or  not. 

Socrates  used  to  say.  What  do  you  want?  Souls  of 
rational  men  or  irrational? — Souls  of  rational  men — Of 
what  rational  men?  Sound  or  unsound? — Sound — Why 
then  do  you  not  seek  for  them? — Because  we  have  them — 
Why  then  do  you  fight  and  quarrel  ? 

NOTES 

*  Law  is  the  order  by  which  all  things  are  governed. 

*This  is  the  only  passage  in  which  the  emperor  speaks  of  the 
Christians.    Epictetus  (iv,  7,)  names  them  Galilaei. 

■  Sophocles,  OEdipus  Rex. 

*Instead  of  cncdXut^  Saumaise  reads  cTKanfiri.  There  is  a  Greek  pro- 
verb, CTKanftov  i,vXov  ovSiTCOT^  op^ov:  "You  cannot  make  a  crooked 
slick  straight." 

The  wolfish  friendship  is  an  allusion  to  the  fable  of  the  sheep  and 
the  wolves. 

'  It  appears  that  there  is  a  defect  in  the  text  here. 

*The  word  itpeaftvTspa,  which  is  here  translated  "prior"  may  also 
mean  "superior ;"  but  Antoninus  seems  to  say  that  piety  and  reverence 
of  the  gods  precede  all  virtues,  and  that  other  virtues  are  derived  from 
them,  even  justice,  which  in  another  passage  (xi,  10)  he  makes  the 
foundation  of  all  virtues.   The  ancient  notion  of  justice  is  that  of  giving 


MEDITATIONS  1 1 7 

to  every  one  his  due.  It  is  not  a  legal  definition,  as  some  have  supposed, 
but  a  moral  rule  which  law  can  not  in  all  cases  enforce.  Besides  law 
has  its  own  rules,  which  are  sometimes  moral  and  sometimes  immoral; 
but  it  enforces  them  all  simply  because  they  are  general  rules,  and  if 
it  did  not  or  could  not  enforce  them,  so  far  law  would  not  be  law. 
Justice,  or  the  doing  what  is  just,  implies  a  universal  rule  and  obedience 
to  it;  and  as  we  all  live  under  universal  law,  which  commands  both 
our  body  and  our  intelligence,  and  is  the  law  of  our  nature,  that  is  the 
law  of  the  whole  constitution  of  man,  we  must  endeavour  to  discover 
what  this  supreme  law  is.  It  is  the  will  of  the  power  that  rules  all. 
By  acting  in  obedience  to  this  will,  we  do  justice,  and  by  consequence 
everything  else  that  we  ought  to  do. 

'  The  story  is  told  by  Horace  in  his  Satires  (ii,  6),  and  by  others 
since,  but  not  better. 

*  Perhaps  the  emperor  made  a  mistake  here,  for  other  writers  say 
that  it  was  Archelaus,  the  son  of  Perdiccas,  who  invited  Socrates  to 
Macedonia. 

•Od.  IX.  413. 

"Hesiod,  Works  and  Days,  184. 

"Epictetus,  III,  24,  87. 

"Epictetus,  III,  24. 

"Epictetus,  m,  22,  105. 


BOOK  XII 

ALL  those  things  at  which  thou  wishest  to  arrive  by  a 
circuitous  road,  thou  canst  have  now,  if  thou  dost  not 
refuse  them  to  thyself.  And  this  means,  if  thou  wilt 
take  no  notice  of  all  the  past,  and  trust  the  future  to 
providence,  and  direct  the  present  only  conformably  to  piety 
and  justice.  Conformably  to  piety,  that  thou  mayst  be  con- 
tent with  the  lot  which  is  assigned  to  thee,  for  nature  de- 
signed it  for  thee  and  thee  for  it.  Conformably  to  justice, 
that  thou  mayst  always  speak  the  truth  freely  and  without 
disguise,  and  do  things  which  are  agreeable  to  law  and  ac- 
cording to  the  worth  of  each.  And  let  neither  another  man's 
wickedness  hinder  thee,  nor  opinion  nor  voice,  nor  yet  the 
sensations  of  the  poor  flesh  which  has  grown  about  thee; 
for  the  passive  part  will  look  to  this.  If  then,  whatever  the 
time  may  be  when  thou  shalt  be  near  to  thy  departure,  neg- 
lecting everything  else  thou  shalt  respect  only  thy  ruling 
faculty  and  the  divinity  within  thee,  and  if  thou  shalt  be 
afraid  not  because  thou  must  some  time  cease  to  live,  but  if 
thou  shalt  fear  never  to  have  beg^n  to  live  according  to 
nature — then  thou  wilt  be  a  man  worthy  of  the  universe 
which  has  produced  thee,  and  thou  wilt  cease  to  be  a  stranger 
in  thy  native  land,  and  to  wonder  at  things  which  happen 
daily  as  if  they  were  something  unexpected,  and  to  be  de- 
pendent on  this  or  that. 

God  sees  the  minds  (ruling  principles)  of  all  men  bared 
of  the  material  vesture  and  rind  and  impurities.  For  with 
his  intellectual  part  alone  he  touches  the  intelligence  only 
which  has  flowed  and  been  derived  from  himself  into  these 
bodies.  And  if  thou  also  usest  thyself  to  do  this,  thou  wilt 
rid  thyself  of  thy  much  trouble.  For  he  who  regards  not 
the  poor  flesh  which  envelopes  him,  surely  will  not  trouble 

Ii8 


MEDITATIONS  II9 

himself  by  looking  after  raiment  and  dwelling  and  fame  and 
such  like  externals  and  show. 

The  things  are  three  of  which  thou  art  composed,  a  little 
body,  a  little  breath,  [life],  intelligence.  Of  these  the  first 
two  are  thine,  so  far  as  it  is  thy  duty  to  take  care  of  them ; 
but  the  third  alone  is  properly  thine.  Therefore  if  thou 
shalt  separate  from  thyself,  that  is,  from  thy  understanding, 
whatever  others  do  or  say,  and  whatever  thou  hast  done 
or  said  thyself,  and  whatever  future  things  trouble  thee 
because  they  may  happen,  and  whatever  in  the  body  which 
envelopes  thee  or  in  the  breath  [life],  which  is  by  nature  as- 
sociated with  the  body,  is  attached  to  thee  independent  of  thy 
will,  and  whatever  the  external  circumfluent  vortex  whirls 
round,  so  that  the  intellectual  power  exempt  from  the  things 
of  fate  can  live  pure  and  free  by  itself,  doing  what  is  just  and 
accepting  what  happens  and  saying  the  truth:  if  thou  wilt 
separate,  I  say,  from  this  ruling  faculty  the  things  which 
are  attached  to  it  by  the  impressions  of  sense,  and  the  things 
of  time  to  come  and  of  time  that  is  past,  and  wilt  make  thy- 
self like  Empedocles'  sphere, — 

"All  round,  and  in  its  joyous  rest  reposing  :"* 

and  if  thou  shalt  strive  to  live  only  what  is  really  thy  life, 
that  is,  the  present — then  thou  wilt  be  able  to  pass  that  por- 
tion of  life  which  remains  for  thee  up  to  the  time  of  thy 
death,  free  from  perturbations,  nobly,  and  obedient  to  thy 
own  daemon  [to  the  god  that  is  within  thee]. 

I  have  often  wondered  how  it  is  that  every  man  loves 
himself  more  than  all  the  rest  of  men,  but  yet  sets  less  value 
on  his  own  opinion  of  himself  than  on  the  opinion  of  others. 
If  then  a  god  or  a  wise  teacher  should  present  himself  to  man 
and  bid  him  to  think  of  nothing  and  to  design  nothing  which 
he  would  not  express  as  soon  as  he  conceived  it,  he  could  not 
endure  it  even  for  a  single  day.  So  much  more  respect  have 
we  to  what  our  neighbours  shall  think  of  us  than  to  what 
we  shall  think  of  ourselves. 

How  can  it  be  that  the  gods  after  having  arranged  all 

things  well  and  benevolently  for  mankind,  have  overlooked 

this  alone,  that  some  men  and  very  good  men,  and  men  who, 

as  we  may  say,  have  had  most  communion  with  the  divinity, 

33 

'7 


1 20  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

and  through  pious  acts  and  religious  observances  have  been 
most  intimate  with  the  divinity,  when  they  have  once  died 
should  never  exist  again,  but  should  be  completely  extin- 
guished ? 

But  if  this  is  so,  be  assured  that  if  it  ought  to  have  been 
otherwise,  the  gods  would  have  done  it.  For  if  it  were  just, 
it  would  also  be  possible ;  and  if  it  were  according  to  nature, 
nature  would  have  had  it  so.  But  because  it  is  not  so,  if  in 
fact  it  is  not  so,  be  thou  convinced  that  it  ought  not  to  have 
been  so : — for  thou  seest  even  of  thyself  that  in  this  inquiry 
thou  art  disputing  with  the  deity;  and  we  should  not  thus 
dispute  with  the  gods,  unless  they  were  most  excellent  and 
most  just; — but  if  this  is  so,  they  would  not  have  allowed 
anything  in  the  ordering  of  the  universe  to  be  neglected  un- 
justly and  irrationally. 

Practise  thyself  even  in  the  things  which  thou  despairest 
of  accomplishing.  For  even  the  left  hand,  which  is  ineffec- 
tual for  all  other  things  for  want  of  practice,  holds  the  bridle 
more  vigorously  than  the  right  hand ;  for  it  has  been  practised 
in  this. 

Consider  in  what  condition  both  in  body  and  soul  a  man 
should  be  when  he  is  overtaken  by  death;  and  consider  the 
shortness  of  life,  the  boundless  abyss  of  time  past  and  future, 
the  feebleness  of  all  matter. 

Contemplate  the  formative  principles  [forms]  of  things 
bare  of  their  coverings;  the  purposes  of  actions;  consider 
what  pain  is,  what  pleasure  is,  and  death,  and  fame;  who  is 
to  himself  the  cause  of  his  uneasiness;  how  no  man  is 
hindered  by  another ;  that  everything  is  opinion. 

In  the  application  of  thy  principles  thou  must  be  like  the 
pancratiast,  not  like  the  gladiator ;  for  the  gladiator  lets  fall 
the  sword  which  he  uses  and  is  killed ;  but  the  other  always 
has  his  hand,  and  needs  to  do  nothing  else  than  use  it. 

See  what  things  are  in  themselves,  dividing  them  into 
matter,  form,  and  purpose. 

What  a  power  man  has  to  do  nothing  except  what  god  will 
approve,  and  to  accept  all  that  god  may  give  him. 

With  respect  to  that  which  happens  conformably  to  nature, 
we  ought  to  blame  neither  gods,  for  they  do  nothing  wrong 
either  voluntarily  or  involuntarily,  nor  men,  for  they  do 


MEDITATIONS  121 

nothing  wrong  except  involuntarily.  Consequently  we 
should  blame  nobody. 

How  ridiculous  and  what  a  stranger  he  is  who  is  surprised 
at  anything  which  happens  in  life. 

Either  there  is  a  fatal  necessity  and  invincible  order,  or  a 
kind  providence,  or  a  confusion  without  a  purpose  and  with- 
out a  director.  If  then  there  is  an  invincible  necessity,  why 
dost  thou  resist?  But  if  there  is  a  providence  which  allows 
itself  to  be  propitiated,  make  thyself  worthy  of  the  help  of  the 
divinity.  But  if  there  is  a  confusion  without  a  governor,  be 
content  that  in  such  a  tempest  thou  hast  in  thyself  a  certain 
ruling  intelligence.  And  even  if  the  tempest  carry  thee 
away,  let  it  carry  away  the  poor  flesh,  the  poor  breath,  every- 
thing else ;  for  the  intelligence  at  least  it  will  not  carry  away. 

Does  the  light  of  the  lamp  shine  without  losing  its  splen- 
dour until  it  is  extinguished ;  and  shall  the  truth  which  is  in 
thee  and  justice  and  temperance  be  extinguished  [before  thy 
death]  ? 

When  a  man  has  presented  the  appearance  of  having  done 
wrong,  [say,]  How  then  do  I  know  that  this  is  a  wrongful 
act  ?  And  if  he  has  done  wrong,  how  do  I  know  that  he  has 
not  condemned  himself?  and  so  this  is  like  tearing  his  own 
face.  Consider  that  he,  who  would  not  have  the  bad  man 
do  wrong,  is  like  the  man  who  would  not  have  the  fig-tree 
to  bear  juice  in  the  figs  and  infants  to  cry  and  the  horse  to 
neigh,  and  whatever  else  must  of  necessity  be.  For  what 
must  a  man  do  who  has  such  a  character  ?  If  then  thou  art 
irritable,*  cure  this  man's  disposition. 

If  it  is  not  right,  do  not  do  it :  if  it  is  not  true,  do  not  say 
it.     [For  let  thy  efforts  be. — Y 

In  everything  always  observe  what  the  thing  is  which  pro- 
duces for  thee  an  appearance,  and  resolve  it  by  dividing  it 
into  the  formal,  the  material,  the  purpose,  and  the  time 
within  which  it  must  end. 

Perceive  at  last  that  thou  hast  in  thee  something  better  and 
more  divine  than  the  things  which  cause  the  various  affects, 
and  as  it  were  pull  thee  by  the  strings.  What  is  there  now 
in  my  mind  ?  is  it  fear,  or  suspicion,  or  desire,  or  anything  of 
the  kind  ? 

First,  do  nothing  inconsiderately,  nor  without  a  purpose. 


122  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

Second,  make  thy  acts  refer  to  nothing  else  than  to  a  social 
end. 

Consider  that  before  long  thou  wilt  be  nobody  and  no- 
where, nor  will  any  of  the  things  exist  which  thou  now  seest, 
nor  any  of  those  who  are  now  living.  For  all  things  are 
formed  by  nature  to  change  and  be  turned  and  to  perish  in 
order  that  other  things  in  continuous  succession  may  exist. 

Consider  that  everything  is  opinion,  and  opinion  is  in  thy 
power.  Take  away  then,  when  thou  choosest,  thy  opinion, 
and  like  a  mariner,  who  has  doubled  the  promontory,  thou 
wilt  find  calm,  everything  stable,  and  a  waveless  bay. 

Any  one  activity  whatever  it  may  be,  when  it  has  ceased 
at  its  proper  time,  suffers  no  evil  because  it  has  ceased ;  nor 
he  who  has  done  this  act,  does  he  suffer  any  evil  for  this 
reason  that  the  act  has  ceased.  In  like  manner  then  the 
whole  which  consists  of  all  the  acts,  which  is  our  life,  if 
it  cease  at  its  proper  time,  suffers  no  evil  for  this  reason  that 
it  has  ceased;  nor  he  who  has  terminated  this  series  at  the 
proper  time,  has  he  been  ill  dealt  with.  But  the  proper 
time  and  the  limit  nature  fixes,  sometimes  as  in  old  age  the 
peculiar  nature  of  man,  but  always  the  universal  nature,  by 
the  change  of  whose  parts  the  whole  universe  continues  ever 
young  and  perfect.  And  everything  which  is  useful  to  the 
universal  is  always  good  and  in  season.  Therefore  the  ter- 
mination of  life  for  every  man  is  no  evil,  because  neither  is  it 
shameful,  since  it  is  both  independent  of  the  will  and  not 
opposed  to  the  general  interest,  but  it  is  good,  since  it  is  sea- 
sonable and  profitable  to  and  congruent  with  the  universal. 
For  thus  too  he  is  moved  by  the  deity  who  is  moved  in  the 
same  manner  with  the  deity  and  moved  towards  the  same 
things  in  his  mind. 

These  three  principles  thou  must  have  in  readiness.  In 
the  things  which  thou  doest  do  nothing  either  inconsiderately 
or  otherwise  than  as  justice  herself  would  act;  but  with  re- 
spect to  what  may  happen  to  thee  from  without,  consider  that 
it  happens  either  by  chance  or  according  to  providence,  and 
thou  must  neither  blame  chance  nor  accuse  providence.  Sec- 
ond, consider  what  every  being  is  from  the  seed  to  the  time 
of  its  receiving  a  soul,  and  from  the  reception  of  a  soul  to 
the  giving  back  of  the  same,  and  of  what  things  every  being 


I , 


MEDITATIONS  123 

IS  compounded  and  into  what  things  it  is  resolved.  Third, 
if  thou  shouldst  suddenly  be  raised  up  above  the  earth,  and 
shouldst  look  down  on  human  things,  and  observe  the  variety 
of  them  how  great  it  is,  and  at  the  same  time  also  shouldst 
see  at  a  glance  how  great  is  the  number  of  beings  who  dwell 
all  around  in  the  air  and  the  aether,  consider  that  as  often  as 
thou  shouldst  be  raised  up,  thou  wouldst  see  the  same  things, 
sameness  of  form  and  shortness  of  duration.  Are  these 
things  to  be  proud  of  ? 

Cast  away  opinion:  thou  art  saved.  Who  then  hinders 
thee  from  casting  it  away  ? 

When  thou  art  troubled  about  anything,  thou  hast  for- 
gotten this,  that  all  things  happen  according  to  the  universal 
nature ;  and  forgotten  this,  that  a  man's  wrongful  act  is  noth- 
ing to  thee ;  and  further  thou  hast  forgotten  this,  that  every- 
thing which  happens,  always  happened  so  and  will  happen 
so,  and  now  happens  so  everywhere ;  forgotten  this  too,  how 
close  is  the  kinship  between  a  man  and  the  whole  human  race, 
for  it  is  a  community,  not  of  a  little  blood  or  seed,  but  of 
intelligence.  And  thou  hast  forgotten  this  too,  that  every 
man's  intelligence  is  a  god,  and  is  an  efflux  of  the  deity ;  and 
forgotten  this,  that  nothing  is  a  man's  own,  but  that  his  child 
and  his  body  and  his  very  soul  came  from  the  deity;  for- 
gotten this,  that  everything  is  opinion ;  and  lastly  thou  hast 
forgotten  that  every  man  lives  the  present  time  only,  and 
loses  only  this. 

Constantly  bring  to  thy  recollection  those  who  have  com- 
plained greatly  about  anything,  those  who  have  been  most 
conspicuous  by  the  greatest  fame  or  misfortunes  or  enmities 
or  fortunes  of  any  kind :  then  think  where  are  they  all  now  ? 
Smoke  and  ash  and  a  tale,  or  not  even  a  tale.  And  let  there 
be  present  to  thy  mind  also  everything  of  this  sort,  how 
Fabius  Catullinus  lived  in  the  country,  and  Lucius  Lupus  in 
his  gardens,  and  Stertinius  at  Baiae,  and  Tiberius  at  Capreae 
and  Velius  Rufus  [or  Rufus  at  Velia]  ;  and  in  fine  think  of 
the  eager  pursuit  of  anything  conjoined  with  pride ;  and  how 
worthless  everything  is  after  which  men  violently  strain; 
and  how  much  more  philosophical  it  is  for  a  man  in  the 
opportunities  presented  to  him  to  show  himself  just,  tem- 
perate, obedient  to  the  gods,  and  to  do  this  with  all  sim- 


124  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

plicity :  for  the  pride  which  is  proud  of  its  want  of  pride  is 
the  most  intolerable  of  all. 

To  those  who  ask,  Where  hast  thou  seen  the  gods  or  how 
dost  thou  comprehend  that  they  exist  and  so  worshipest 
them,  I  answer,  in  the  first  place,  they  may  be  seen  even  with 
the  eyes;^  in  the  second  place  neither  have  I  seen  even  my 
own  soul  and  yet  I  honour  it.  Thus  then  with  respect  to  the 
gods,  from  what  I  constantly  experience  of  their  power,  from 
this  I  comprehend  that  they  exist  and  I  venerate  them. 

The  safety  of  life  is  this,  to  examine  everything  all 
through,  what  it  is  itself,  what  is  its  material,  what  the 
formal  part;  with  all  thy  soul  to  do  justice  and  to  say  the 
truth.  What  remains  except  to  enjoy  life  by  joining  one 
good  thing  to  another  so  as  not  to  leave  even  the  smallest 
intervals  between  ? 

There  is  one  light  of  the  sun,  though  it  is  interrupted  by 
walls,  mountains,  and  other  things  infinite.  There  is  one 
common  substance,  though  it  is  distributed  among  countless 
bodies  which  have  their  several  qualities.  There  is  one  soul, 
though  it  is  distributed  among  infinite  natures  and  individual 
circumscriptions  [or  individuals].  There  is  one  intelligent 
soul,  though  it  seems  to  be  divided.  Now  in  the  things 
which  have  been  mentioned  all  the  other  parts,  such  as  those 
which  are  air  and  matter,  are  without  sensation  and  have  no 
fellowship :  and  yet  even  these  parts  the  intelligent  principle 
holds  together  and  the  gravitation  towards  the  same.  But 
intellect  in  a  peculiar  manner  tends  to  that  which  is  of  the 
same  kin,  and  combines  with  it,  and  the  feeling  for  com- 
munion is  not  interrupted. 

What  dost  thou  wish?  to  continue  to  exist?  Well,  dost 
thou  wish  to  have  sensation  ?  movement  ?  growth  ?  and  then 
again  to  cease  to  grow?  to  use  thy  speech?  to  think?  What 
is  there  of  all  these  things  which  seems  to  thee  worth  desir- 
ing? But  if  it  is  easy  to  set  little  value  on  all  these  things, 
turn  to  that  which  remains,  which  is  to  follow  reason  and 
god.  But  it  is  inconsistent  with  honouring  reason  and  god 
to  be  troubled  because  by  death  a  man  will  be  deprived  of  the 
other  things. 

How  small  a  part  of  the  boundless  and  unfathomable  time 
is  assigned  to  every  man?  for  it  is  very  soon  swallowed  up 


MEDITATIONS  125 

in  the  eternal.  And  how  small  a  part  of  the  whole  sub- 
stance ?  and  how  small  a  part  of  the  universal  soul  ?  and  on 
what  a  small  clod  of  the  whole  earth  thou  creepest  ?  Reflect- 
ing on  all  this  consider  nothing  to  be  great,  except  to  act  as 
thy  nature  leads  thee,  and  to  endure  that  which  the  common 
nature  brings. 

How  does  the  ruling  faculty  make  use  of  itself?  for  all 
lies  in  this.  But  everything  else,  whether  it  is  in  the  power 
of  thy  will  or  not,  is  only  lifeless  ashes  and  smoke. 

This  reflection  is  njost  adapted  to  move  us  to  contempt 
of  death,  that  even  those  who  think  pleasure  to  be  a  good  and 
pain  an  evil  still  have  despised  it. 

The  man  to  whom  that  only  is  good  which  comes  in 
due  season,  and  to  whom  it  is  the  same  thing  whether  he  has 
done  piore  or  fewer  acts  conformable  to  right  reason,  and  to 
whom  it  makes  no  difference  whether  he  contemplates  the 
world  for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time — for  this  man  neither  is 
death  a  terrible  thing. 

Man,  thou  hast  been  a  citizen  in  this  great  state  [the 
world]  :  what  difference  does  it  make  to  thee  whether  for 
five  years  [or  three]  ?  for  that  which  is  conformable  to  the 
laws  is  just  for  all.  Where  is  the  hardship  then,  if  no  tyrant 
nor  yet  an  unjust  judge  sends  thee  away  from  the  state,  but 
nature  who  brought  thee  into  it  ?  the  same  as  if  a  praetor  who 
has  employed  an  actor  dismisses  him  from  the  stage — "But 
I  have  not  finished  the  five  acts,  but  only  three  of  them" — 
Thou  sayest  well,  but  in  life  the  three  acts  are  the  whole 
drama ;  for  what  shall  be  a  complete  drama  is  determined  by 
him  who  was  once  the  cause  of  its  composition,  and  now  of 
its  dissolution:  but  thou  art  the  cause  of  neither.  Depart 
then  satisfied,  for  he  also  who  releases  thee  is  satisfied. 

NOTES 

*  The  verse  of  Empedocles  is  corrupt  in  Antoninus.  It  has  been  re- 
stored by  Peyron  from  a  Turin  manuscript,  thus : 

2(paipoi  KVKXoTsprii  jnovip  nepiyijOet  yaicov. 

•There  is  something  wrong  here,  or  incomplete. 

• "  Seen  even  with  the  eyes."  It  is  supposed  that  this  may  be  ex- 
plained by  the  Stoic  doctrine,  that  the  universe  is  a  god  or  living  being 
(iv,  40),  and  that  the  celestial  bodies  are  gods  (viii,  19).   But  the  em- 


126  MARCUS  AURELIUS 

peror  may  mean  that  we  know  that  the  gods  exist,  as  he  afterwards 
states  it,  because  we  see  what  they  do;  as  we  know  that  man  has  intel- 
lectual powers,  because  we  see  what  he  does,  and  in  no  other  way  do 
we  know  it.  This  passage  then  will  agree  with  the  passage  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Romans  (i  v.  20),  and  with  the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians  (i  v. 
15),  in  which  Jesus  Christ  is  named  "the  image  of  the  invisible  god;" 
and  with  the  passage  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  (xiv  v.  9). 

Gataker,  whose  notes  are  a  wonderful  collection  of  learning,  and  all 
of  it  sound  and  good,  quotes  a  passage  of  Calvin  which  is  founded  on 
St.  Paul's  language  (Rom.  i  v.  20)  :  "God  by  creating  the  universe  [or 
world,  mundum],  being  Himself  invisible,  has  presented  Himself  to  our 
eyes  conspicuously  in  a  certain  visible  form."  He  also  quotes  Seneca 
(De  Benef.  iv  c.  8)  :  "Quocunque  te  flexeris,  ibi  ilium  videbis  oc- 
currentem  tibi :  nihil  ab  illo  vacat,  opus  suum  ipse  implet."  Compare 
also  Cicero,  De  Senectute  (c.  22),  Xenophon's  Cyropaedia  (viii,  7), 
and  Mem.  iv,  3;  also  Epictetus,  i,  6,  de  Providentia.  I  think  that  my 
interpretation  of  Antoninus  is  right. 


m 


THE   END. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  UBRARY  FACILITY 

IlilllllNlil 

A    000  769  227    o 


